





I 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 



copyright by 

The Herndox's Ltxcolk Publishing Co. 

1921 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 

THE TRUE STORY OF A GREAT LIFE 

Etiam in minimis major 

THE HISTORY AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 

OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

BY 

WILLIAM H. HERNDON 

For Twenty Years His Friend and Law 
Partner 

AND 

JESSE WILLIAM WEIK, A. M, 

VOL. I 

THE HERNDON'S LINCOLN PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Publishers 

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 






These volumes are submitted as faithful repro- 
ductions of the original ''Herndon's Lincoln". We 
have endeavored to make the body of the work con- 
form, line for line and word for word, to the original. 

The Publishers. 






HUG 1271 



TO 

THE MEN AND WOMEN OF AMERICA 

WHO HAVE GROWN UP SINCE HIS TRAGIC DEATH, AND 

WHO HAVE YET TO LEARN THE STORY OF 

HIS LIFE, THIS RECORD OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S CAREER 

IS FAITHFULLY INSCRIBED 



PREFACE 



A QUARTER of a century has well-nigh rolled by 
since the tragic death of Abraham Lincoln. The 
prejudice and bitterness with which he was assailed 
have disappeared from the minds of men, and the 
world is now beginning to view him as a great his- 
torical character. Those who knew and walked with 
him are gradually passing away, and ere long the 
last man who ever heard his voice or grasped his 
hand will have gone from earth. With a view to 
throwing a light on some attributes of Lincoln's 
character heretofore obscure, and thus contributing 
to the great fund of history which goes down to 
posterity, these volumes are given to the world. 

If Mr. Lincoln is destined to fill that exalted 
station in history or attain that high rank in the 
estimation of the coming generations which has 
been predicted of him, it is alike just to his mem- 
ory and the proper legacy of mankind that the 
whole truth concerning him should be known. If 
the story of his life is truthfully and courageously 
told — nothing colored or suppressed; nothing false 
either written or suggested — the reader will see and 
feel the presence of the living man. He will, in 
fact. Hve with him and be moved to think and act 



vn 



viii P HE FACE. 

with him. If, on the other hand, the story is col- 
ored or the facts in any degree suppressed, the 
reader will be not only misled, but imposed upon as 
well. At last the truth will come, and no man need 
hope to evade it. 

'There is but one true history in the world," 
said one of Lincoln's closest friends to whom I con- 
fided the project of writing a history of his life 
several years ago, "and that is the Bible. It is 
often said of the old characters portrayed there 
that they were bad men. They are contrasted 
with other characters in history, and much to the 
detriment of the old worthies. The reason is, that 
the Biblical historian told the whole truth — the 
inner life. The heart and secret acts are brought 
to light and faithfully photographed. In other his- 
tories virtues are perpetuated and vices concealed. 
If the life of King David had been written by an 
ordinary historian the affair of Uriah would at most 
have been a quashed indictment with a denial of 
all the substantial facts. You should not forget 
there is a skeleton in every house. The finest 
character dug out thoroughly, photographed hon- 
estly, and judged by that standard of morality or 
excellence which we exact for other men is never 
perfect. Some men are cold, some lewd, some dis- 
honest, some cruel, and many a combination of all. 
The trail of the serpent is over them all ! Excel- 
lence consists, not in the absence of these attri- 
butes, but in the degree in which they are redeemed 
by the virtues and graces of life. Lincoln's char- 
acter will, I am certain, bear close scrutiny. I am 



PREFACE. ix 

not afraid of you in this direction. Don't let any 
thing deter you from digging to the bottom ; yet 
don't forget that if Lincoln had some faults, Wash- 
ington had more — few men have less. In drawing 
the portrait tell the world what the skeleton was 
with Lincoln. What gave him that peculiar mel- 
ancholy? What cancer had he inside?" 

Some persons will doubtless object to the narra- 
tion of certain facts which appear here for the first 
time, and which they contend should have been 
consigned to the tomb. Their pretense is that no 
good can come from such ghastly exposures. To 
such over-sensitive souls, if any such exist, my 
answer is that these facts are indispensable to a full 
knowledge of Mr. Lincoln in all the walks of life. 
In order properly to comprehend him and the stir- 
ring, bloody times in which he lived, and in which 
he played such an important part, we must have all 
the facts — we must be prepared to take him as he 
was. 

In determining Lincoln's title to greatness we 
must not only keep in mind the times in which he 
lived, but we must, to a certain extent, measure him 
with other men. Many of our great men and our 
statesmen, it is true, have been self-made, rising 
gradually through struggles to the topmost round 
of the ladder ; but Lincoln rose from a lower depth 
than any of them — from a stagnant, putrid pool, like 
the gas which, set on fire by its own energy and 
self -combustible nature, rises in jets, blazing, clear, 
and bright. I should be remiss in my duty if I did 
not throw the light on this part of the picture, so 



X PREFACE. 

that the world may reaHze what marvellous con- 
trast one phase of his life presents to another. 

The purpose of these volumes is to narrate facts, 
avoiding as much as possible any expression of 
opinion, and leaving the reader to form his own con- 
clusions. Use has been made of the views and 
recollections of other persons, but only those known 
to be truthful and trustworthy. A thread of the 
narrative of Lincoln's life runs through the work, 
but an especial feature is an analysis of the man 
and a portrayal of his attributes and characteristics. 
The attempt to delineate his qualities, his nature 
and its manifestations, may occasion frequent repe- 
titions of fact, but if truthfully done this can only 
augment the store of matter from which posterity 
is to learn what manner of man he was. 

The object of this work is to deal with Mr. Lin- 
coln individually and domestically; as lawyer, as 
citizen, as statesman. Especial attention is given to 
the history of his youth and early manhood; and 
while dwelling on this portion of his life the liberty 
is taken to insert many things that would be 
omitted or suppressed in other places, where the 
cast-iron rules that govern magazine writing are 
allowed to prevail. Thus much is stated in advance, 
so that no one need be disappointed in the scope 
and extent of the work. The endeavor is to keep 
Lincoln in sight all the time; to cling close to his 
side all the way through — leaving to others the 
more comprehensive task of writing a history of his 
times. I have no theory of his life to establish or 
destroy. Mr. Lincoln was my warm, devoted friend. 



PREFACE. xi 



I always loved him, and I revere his name to this 
day. My purpose to tell the truth about him need 
occasion no apprehension; for I know that "God's 
naked truth," as Carlyle puts it, can never injure 
the fame of Abraham Lincoln. It will stand that 
or any other test, and at last untarnished will reach 
the loftiest niche in American history. 

My long personal association with Mr. Lincoln 
gave me special facilities in the direction of obtain- 
ing materials for these volumes. Such were our 
relations during all that portion of his Hfe when he 
was rising to distinction, that I had only to exer- 
cise a moderate vigilance in order to gather and 
preserve the real data of his personal career. Be- 
ing strongly drawn to the man, and believing in his 
destiny, I was not unobservant or careless in this 
respect. It thus happened that I became the per- 
sonal depositary of the larger part of the most valu- 
able Lincolniana in existence. Out of this store 
the major portion of the materials of the following 
volumes has been drawn. I take this, my first 
general opportunity, to return thanks to the scores 
of friends in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and else- 
where for the information they have so generously 
furnished and the favors they have so kindly 
extended me. Their names are too numerous for 
separate mention, but the recompense of each one 
will be the consciousness of having contributed a 
share towards a true history of the "first Ameri- 
can." 

Over twenty years ago I began this book; but 
an active life at the bar has caused me to postpone 



xii PREFACE. 

the work of composition, until, now, being some- 
what advanced in years, I find myself unable to 
carry out the undertaking. Within the past three 
years I have been assisted in the preparation of the 
book by Mr. Jesse W. Weik, of Greencastle, Ind., 
whose industry, patience, and literary zeal have not 
only lessened my labors, but have secured for him 
the approbation of Lincoln's friends and admirers. 
Mr. Weik has by his personal investigation greatly 
enlarged our common treasure of facts and informa- 
tion. He has for several years been indefatigable 
in exploring the course of Lincoln's life. In no 
particular has he been satisfied with anything taken 
at second hand. He has visited — as I also did in 
1865 — Lincoln's birthplace in Kentucky, his early 
homes in Indiana and Illinois, and together, so to 
speak, he and I have followed our hero continu- 
ously and attentively till he left Springfield in 1861 
to be inaugurated President. We have retained 
the original MSS. in all cases, and they have never 
been out of our hands. In relating facts therefore, 
we refer to them in most cases, rather than to the 
statements of other biographers. 

This brief preliminary statement is made so that 
posterity, in so far as posterity may be interested in 
the subject, may know that the vital matter of this 
narrative has been deduced directly from the con- 
sciousness, reminiscences, and collected data of 



William H. Herndon. 



Springfield, III., 
November 1, 1888. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

PAQH 

Date and place of Lincoln's birth. — The interview with 
J. L. Scripps. — Lincoln's reference to his mother. — The 
Bible record. — The Kentucky stories of Lincoln's paren- 
tage. — The journal of William Calk. — The death of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, the President's grandfather. — Mordecai's 
revenge. — Thomas Lincoln, his marriage and married life. — 
Nancy Hanks, the President's mother. — Her sadness , her 
disposition and mental nature. — The camp-meeting at EUza- 
bethtown 1-15 



CHAPTER H. 

Sarah Lincoln. — She attends school with her brother 
Abraham. — The tribute by Helm to Abe, the little boy. — 
Boyhood exploits with John Duncan and Austin Gollaher. 
— Dissatisfaction of Thomas Lincoln with Kentucky. — 
The removal to Indiana. — The "half-faced camp." — Thomas 
and Betsy Sparrow follow. — How Thomas Lincoln and the 
Sparrows farmed. — Life in the Lincoln cabin. — Abe and 
David Turnham go to mill. — Appearance of the "milk 
sick" in the Pigeon Creek settlement. — Death of the Spar- 
rows. — Death of Nancy Lincoln. — The widowerhood of 
Thomas Lincoln. — He marries Sarah Bush Johnston. — The 
Lincoln and Johnston children. — 'Tilda Johnston's indiscre- 
tion. — Attending school. — Abe's gallantry toward Kate 
Roby. — "Blue Nose" Crawford and the book. — Schoolboy 
poetry. — Abe's habits of study. — Testimony of his step- 
mother 16-44 

CHAPTER HI 

Abe reads his first law-book. — The fight between John 
Johnston and William Grigsby. — Recollections of Elizabeth 

xiii 



xiv CONTENTS. 



Crawford. — Marriage of Sarah Lincoln and Aaron Grigsby. 
— The wedding song. — The "Chronicles of Reuben." — 
More poetry. — Abe attends court at Booneville. — The ac- 
cident at Gordon's mill. — Borrowing law-books of Judge 
Pitcher. — Compositions on Temperance and Government. — 
The journey with Allen Gentry to New Orleans. — Return to 
Indiana. — Customs and superstition of the pioneers. — Reap- 
pearance of the "milk sick." — Removal to Illinois. — Abe 
and his pet dog 45-68 



CHAPTER IV. 

The settlement in Illinois. — Splitting rails with John 
Hanks. — Building the boat for Offut. — The retucn to Illi- 
nois, — New Salem described. — Clerking on the election 
board. — The lizard story. — Salesman in Offut's store. — The 
wrestle with Jack Armstrong. — Studying in the store, — Dis- 
appearance of Offut. — The Talisman. — Oliphant's poetry. 
— The reception at Springfield. — The Captain's wife. — Re- 
turn trip of the Talisman. — Rowan Herndon and Lincoln 
pilot her through. — The navigability of the Sangamon 
fully demonstrated. — The vessel reaches Beardstown, . 69-91 



CHAPTER V. 

The Black Hawk war, — Lincoln elected captain. — Under 
arrest. — Protecting the Indian. — Recollections of a com- 
rade. — Lincoln re-enlists as a private. — Return to New 
Salem. — Candidate for the Legislature. — The handbill. — 
First political speech. — The canvass. — Defeat. — Partnership 
in the store with Berry. — The trade with William Greene. — 
Failure of the business. — Law studies. — Pettifogging. — 
Stories and poetry. — Referee in rural sports. — Deputy 
surveyor under John Calhoun. — Studying with Mentor 
Graham. — Postmaster at New Salem. — The incident with 
Chandler. — Feats of Strength. — Second race for the Legis- 
lature. — Flection. ....... 92-127 



CHAPTER VI. 

Lincoln falls in love with Anne Rutledge. — The old 
story. — Description of the girl. — The affair with John 



CONTENTS. XV 



PAGE 

McNeil. — Departure of McNeil for New York. — Anne 
learns of the change of name. — Her faith under fire. — Lin- 
coln appears on the scene. — Courting in dead earnest. — 
Lincoln's proposal accepted. — The ghost of another love. — 
Death of Anne. — Effect on Lincoln's mind. — His suffering. 
— Kindness of Bowlin Greene. — "Oh, why should the 
spirit of mortal be proud?" — Letter to Dr. Drake. — Return 
of McNamar 128-142 



CHAPTER VII. 



An amusing courtship. — Lincoln meets Mary S. Owens. — 
Her nature, education, and mind. — Lincoln's boast. — He 
pays his addresses. — The lady's letters to Herndon. — Lin- 
coln's letters. — His avowals of affection. — The letter to 
Mrs. Browning. — Miss Owens' estimate of Lincoln. . . 14 3-161 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Lincoln a member of the Legislature at Vandalia. — First 
meeting with Douglas. — The society of Vandalia. — Pioneer 
legislation. — Deputy surveyor under Thomas M. Neal. — 
Candidate for the Legislature again. — Another handbill. — 
Favors "Woman's Rights." — The letter to Col. Robert 
Allen. — The canvass. — The answer to George Forquer. — 
The election, Lincoln leading the ticket. — The "Long 
Nine." — Reckless legislation. — The "DeWitt Clinton" of 
Illinois. — Internal improvements. — The removal of the 
capital to Springfield. — The Committee on Finance. — The 
New England importation. — The Lincoln-Stone protest. — 
Return of the "Long Nine" to Springfield. — Lincoln re- 
moves to Springfield. — Licensed to practise law. — In part- 
nership with John T. Stuart. — Early practice. — Generosity 
of Joshua F. Speed. — The bar of Springfield. — Speed's 
store. — Political discussions. — More poetry. — Lincoln ad- 
dresses the "Young Men's Lyceum." — The debate in the 
Presbyterian Church. — Elected to the Legislature again. — 
Answering Col. Dick Taylor on the stump. — Rescue of 
Baker. — Last canvass for the Legislature. — Tlie Thomas 
"skinning." — The presidential canvass of 1840. . . 162-199 



xvi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 



Lincoln still unmarried. — The Todd family. — Mary Todd. 
— Introduced to Lincoln. — The courtship. — The flirtation 
with Doug-las. — The advice of Speed. — How Lincoln broke 
the engagement. — Preparations for marriage. — A disap- 
pointed bride. — A crazy groom. — Speed takes Lincoln to 
Kentucky. — Restored spirits. — Return of Lincoln to Illinois. 
— Letters to Speed. — The party at Simeon Francis's house. — 
The reconciliation. — The marriag-e. — The duel with James 
iShields. — The "Rebecca" letters. — "Cathleen" invokes 
the muse. — Whiteside's account of the duel. — Merryman's 
account. — Lincoln's address before the Washingtonian Soci- 
ety. — Meeting with Martin Van Buren. — Partnership with 
Stephen T. Logan. — Partnership with William H. Herndon. 
— Congressional aspirations. — Nomination and election of 
John J. Hardin. — The Presidential campaign of 1844. — Lin- 
coln takes the stump in Southern Indiana. — Lincoln nomi- 
nated for Congress. — The canvass against Peter Cartwright. 
— Lincoln elected. — In Congress. — The "Spot Resolutions." 
— Opposes the Mexican war. — Letters to Herndon. — 
Speeches in Congress. — Stumping through New England. — 
A Congressman's troubles. — A characteristic letter. — End of 
Congressional term. ........ 205- 



CHAPTER X. 



Early married life. — Boarding at the "Globe Tavern." — 
A plucky little wife. — Niagara Falls. — The patent for lifting 
vessels over shoals. — Candidate for Commissioner of the 
Land Office. — The appointment of Butterfield. — The offer 
of Territorial posts by President Taylor. — A journey to 
Washington and incidents. — Return to Illinois. — Settling 
down to practice law. — Life on the circuit. — Story-telling. — 
Habits as lawyer and methods of study. — Law-office of Lin- 
coln and Plerndon. — Recollections of Littlefleld. — Studying 
Euclid. — Taste for literature. — Lincoln's first appearance in 
the Suprem.e Court of Illinois. — Professional honor and 
personal honesty. — The juror in the divorce case. . . 295-331 



. CONTENTS. xvii 

CHAPTER XL 



A glimpse into the law office. — How Lincoln kept accounts 
and divided fees with his partner. — Lincoln in the argument 
of a case. — The tribute of David Davis. — Characteristics 
as a lawyer. — One of Lincoln's briefs. — The Wright case. — 
Defending the ladies. — Reminiscences of the circuit. — The 
suit against the Illinois Central railroads. — The Manny case. 
First meeting with Edwin M. Stanton. — Defense of William 
Armstrong. — Last law-suit in Illinois. — The dinner at Ar- 
nold's in Chicago 332-360 



CHAPTER Xn. 



Speech before the Scott Club. — A talk with John T. Stu- 
art. — Newspapers and political literature. — Passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill. — The signs of discontent. — The arri- 
val of Douglas in Chicago. — Speech at the State Fair. — The 
answer of Lincoln. — The article in the Conservative. — Lin- 
coln's escape from the Abolitionists. — Following up Doug- 
las. — Breach of agreement by Douglas. — The contest in 
the Legislature for Senator. — Lincoln's magnanimity. — 
Election of Trumbull. — Interview with the Governor of 
Illinois. — The outrages in the Territories. — Lincoln's judi- 
cious counsel. — A letter to Speed. — The call for the Bloom- 
ington Convention. — Lincoln's telegram. — Speech at the 
Convention. — The ratification at Springfield. — The cam- 
paign of 1856. — Demands for Lincoln. — The letter to the 
Fillmore men 361-389 



CHAPTER XHL 



Growth of Lincoln's reputation. — His dejection. — Gree- 
ley's letters. — Herndon's mission to the Eastern states. — 
Interviews with Seward, Douglas, Greeley, Beecher, and 
others. — The letter from Boston. — The Springfield conven- 
tion. — Lincoln nominated Senator. — The "house-divided 
against-itself" speech. — Reading it to his friends. — Their 
comments and complaints. — Douglas's first speech in 
Chicago. — The joint canvass. — Lincoln and Douglas con- 
trasted. — Lincoln on the stump. — Positions of Lincoln and 



xviii CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Douglas. — Incidents of the debate. The result. — More 
letters from Horace Greeley. — How Lincoln accepted his 
defeat. — A specimen of his oratory. .... 390-422 



CHAPTER XIV. 



A glimpse of Lincoln's home. — Sunday in the office with 
the boys. — Mrs. Lincoln's temper. — Troubles with the ser- 
vants. — Letter to John E. Rosette. — What Lincoln did 
when the domestic sea was troubled. — A retrospect. — Lin- 
coln's want of speculation. — His superstition. — Reading the 
life of Edmund Burke. — His scientific notions. — ^Writing the 
book against Christianity. — -Recollections of Lincoln's views 
by old friends. — Statement of Mrs. Lincoln. . . . 423-446 



CHAPTER XV. 



Effect of the canvass of 1858 on Lincoln's pocket-book. — 
Attempts to lecture. — On the stump with Douglas in Ohio. — 
Incidents of the Ohio canvass. — The dawn of 1860. — Presi- 
dential suggestions. — Meeting in the office of the Secretary 
of State. — The Cooper Institute speech. — Speaking in New 
England. — Looming up. — Preparing for Chicago. — Letters 
to a friend. — The Decatur convention. — John Hanks bring- 
ing in the rails. — The Chicago convention. — The canvass of 
1860. — Lincoln casting his ballot. — Attitude of the clergy in 
Springfield. — The election and result 447-468 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Arrival of the office-seekers in Springfield. — Recollections 
of a newspaper correspondent. — How Lincoln received the 
cabinet-makers. — Making up the cabinet. — A letter from 
Henry Wilson. — Visiting Chicago and meeting with Joshua 
F. Speed. — Preparing the Inaugural address. — Lincoln's self- 
confidence. — Separation from his step-mother. — Last days 
in Springfield. — Parting with old associates. — Departure of 
the Presidential party from Springfield. — The journey to 
Washington and efforts to interrupt the same. — The investi- 
gations of Allan Pinkerton. — The Inauguration. . . 469-497 



CONTENTS. xix 

CHAPTER XVII. 

PAGB 

In the Presidential chair. — Looking after his friends. — 
Settling the claims of David Davis. — Swett's letter. — The 
visit of Herndon. — The testimony of Mrs. Edwards. — Letter 
from and interview with Mrs. Lincoln. — A glimpse into the 
White House. — A letter from John Hay. — Bancroft's 
eulogy. Strictures of David Davis, — Dennis Hanks in 
Washington 498-520 

CHAPTER XVIII. 



The recollections of Lincoln by Joshua F. Speed. — An 
interesting letter by Leonard Swett. . . . . 521-538 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Lincoln face to face with the realities of civil war. — 
Master of the situation. — The distrust of old politicians. — 
How the President viewed the battle of Bull Run. — An 
interesting reminiscence by Robert L. Wilson. — Lincoln's 
plan to suppress the Rebellion. — Dealing with McClellan 
and Grant. — Efforts to hasten the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion. — Lincoln withstands the pressure. — Calling the Cabinet 
together and reading the decree. — The letter to the "Uncon- 
ditional-Union" men. — The campaign of 1864. — Lincoln and 
Andrew Johnson nominated and elected. — The sensational 
report of Judge Advocate General Holt. — Interesting state- 
ments by David Davis and Joseph E. McDonald. — How 
the President retained Indiana in the column of Republi- 
can States. — The letter to General Sherman. — The result of 
the lection. — The second Inauguration. — The address. — 
Military movements. — The surrender at Appomattox. — Lin- 
coln visits the army in Virginia. — Entering Richmond. — The 
end of the war and the dawn of peace. — Stricken down by 
the assassin, John Wilkes Booth. — Details of the cruel deed. 
— The President's death. — The funeral at the WTiite House. 
— Conveying the remains of the dead chieftain to Spring- 
field. — The tribute of Henry Ward Beecher. — The funeral 
at Springfield. — The capture and death of Booth. — The 
arrest, trial, and execution of his fellow conspirators. . 539-581 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XX. 



The visit of Dr. Holland to Springfield. — WTiat he learned 
from Lincoln's neighbors. — Their contradictory opinions. 
— Description by the author of Lincoln's person. — How 
he walked. — His face and head. — Cause of his melancholy. 
— His perceptions. — His memory and association of ideas. — 
Concentration of thought. — The crucible of his analytical 
mind. — The secret of his judgment. — The faith of his opin- 
ions and the firmness of his conclusions. — His belief in the 
power of motive. — The four great elements of his character. 
— His reason ; his conscience ; his sense of right ; his love 
of the truth. — A meek, quiet, unobtrusive gentleman. — His 
humanity. — Will power. — Want of interest in local affairs 
and small things. — Love for his friends. — The combination 
of characteristics. — His intense devotion to the truth. — His 
weak points. — Cool and masterly power of statement. — 
Simplicity and candor : easy of approach and thoroughly 
democratic. — His presence a charm, and his conversation 
a sweet recollection. — A leader of the people. — Strong with 
the masses. — A conservative statesman. — The central figure 
of our national history. — The sublime type of our civiliza- 
tion. — The man for the hour. ...... 



582-611 



APPENDIX. 



Unpublished Family Letters 

An Incident on the Circuit .... 

Lincoln's Fellow Lawyers . . . 

The Truce with Douglas. — Testim.ony of Irwin 

The Bloomington Convention. 

An Office Discussion. — Lincoln's Idea of War 

Lincoln and the Know-Nothings 

Lincoln's Views on the Rights of Suffrage 

The Burial of the Assassin Booth 

A Tribute to Lincoln by a Colleague at the Bar 

Index 



613 
619 
620 
621 
621 
622 
623 
625 
625 
626 
629 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN 



CHAPTER I. 

Beyond the fact that he was born on the 12th 
day of February, 1809, in Hardin county, Ken- 
tucky, Mr. Lincoln usually had but little to say of 
himself, the Hves of his parents, or the history of 
the family before their removal to Indiana. If he 
mentioned the subject at all, it was with great re- 
luctance and significant reserve. There was some- 
thing about his origin he never cared to dwell 
upon. His nomination for the Presidency in 1860, 
however, made the publication of his life a neces- 
sity, and attracted to Springfield an army of cam- 
paign biographers and newspaper men. They met 
him in his office, stopped him in his walks, and fol- 
lowed him to his house. Artists came to paint his 
picture, and sculptors to make his bust. His auto- 
graphs were in demand, and people came long dis- 
tances to shake him by the hand. This sudden ele- 
vation to national prominence found Mr. Lincoln 
unprepared in a great measure for the unaccus- 
tomed demonstrations that awaited him. While he 
was easy of approach and equally courteous to all. 



2 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

yet, as he said to me one evening after a long day 
of hand-shaking, he could not understand why 
people should make so much over him. 

Among the earliest newspaper men to arrive in 
Springfield after the Chicago convention was the 
late J. L. Scripps of the Chicago Tribune, who pro- 
posed to prepare a history of his life. Mr. Lincoln 
deprecated the idea of writing even a campaign 
biography. **Why, Scripps," said he, "it is a great 
piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of 
me or my early life. It can all be condensed into a 
single sentence, and that sentence you will find in 
Gray's Elegy, 

'The short and simple annals of the poor.' 

That's my life, and that's all you or anyone else 
can make out of it." 

He did, however, communicate some facts and 
meagre incidents of his early days, and, with the 
matter thus obtained, Mr. Scripps prepared his 
book. Soon after the death of Lincoln I received 
a letter from Scripps, in which, among other things, 
he recalled the meeting with Lincoln, and the view 
he took of the biography matter. i 

"Lincoln seemed to be painfully impressed," he 
wrote, "with the extreme poverty of his early sur- 
roundings, and the utter absence of all romantic 
and heroic elements. He communicated some 
facts to me concerning his ancestry, which he did 
not wish to have published then, and which I have 
never spoken of or alluded to before." 

What the facts referred to by Mr. Scripps were 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 3 

we do not know ; for he died several years ago with- 
out, so far as is known, reveaHng them to anyone. 

On the subject of his ancestry and origin I only 
remember one time when Mr. Lincoln ever referred 
to it. It was about 1850, when he and I were driv- 
ing in his one-horse buggy to the court in Menard 
county, Illinois. The suit we were going to try 
was one in which we were likely, either directly or 
collaterally, to touch upon the subject of hereditary 
traits. During the ride he spoke, for the first time 
in my hearing, of his mother,* dwelling on her char- 
acteristics, and mentioning or enumerating what 
qualities he inherited from her. He said, among 
other things, that she' was the illegitimate daughter 
of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or 
planter; and he argued that from this last source 
came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental 
activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that 
distinguished him from the other members and 
descendants of the Hanks family. His theory in 
discussing the matter of hereditary traits had been, 
that, for certain reasons, illegitimate children are 
oftentimes sturdier and brighter than those born 
in lawful wedlock; and in his case, he believed that 
his better nature and finer qualities came from this 
broad-minded, unknown Virginian. The revelation 



* Dennis and John Hanks have always insisted that Lincoln's 
mother was not a Hanks, but a Sparrow. Both of them wrote 
to me that such was the fact. Their object in insisting on 
this is apparent when it is .shown that Nancy Hanks was the 
■daughter of Lucy Hanks, who afterward married Henry Spar- 
row. It will be observed that Mr. Lincoln claimed that his 
mother was a Hanks. 



4 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

— ^painful as it was — called up the recollection of 
his mother, and, as the buggy jolted over the road, 
he added ruefully, "God bless my mother; all that 
I am or ever hope to be I owe to her," * and im- 
mediately lapsed into silence. Our interchange of 
ideas ceased, and we rode on for some time vv^ithout 
exchanging a word. He was sad and absorbed. 
Burying himself in thought, and musing no doubt 
over the disclosure he had just made, he drew 
round him a barrier which I feared to penetrate. 
His words and melancholy tone made a deep im- 
pression on me. It was an experience I can never 
forget. As we neared the town of Petersburg we 
were overtaken by an old man who rode beside us 
for awhile, and entertained us with reminiscences 
of days on the frontier. Lincoln was reminded of 
several Indiana stories, and by the time we had 
reached the unpretentious court-house at our desti- 
nation, his sadness had passed away. 

In only two instances did Mr. Lincoln over his 
own hand leave any record of his history or family 
descent. One of these was the modest bit of autobi- 
ography furnished to Jesse W. Fell, in 1859, in which 
after stating that his parents were born in Virginia 
of "undistinguished or second families," he makes 
the brief mention of his mother, saying that she 
came "of a family of the name of Hanks." The 



* If anyone will take the pains to read the Fell autobiography 
they will be struck with Lincoln's meagre reference to his 
mother. He even fails to give her maiden or Christian name, 
and devotes but three lines to her family. A history of the 
Lincolns occupies almost an entire page. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 5 

Other record was the register of marriages, births, 
and deaths which he made in his father's Bible. 
The latter now lies before me. That portion of the 
page which probably contained the record of the 
marriage of his parents, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy 
Hanks, has been lost; but fortunately the records 
of Washington county, Kentucky, and the certifi- 
cate of the minister who performed the marriage 
ceremony— the Rev. Jesse Head — fix the fact and 
date of the latter on the 12th day of June, 1806. 

On the 10th day of February in the following year 
a daughter Sarah* was born, and two years later, 
on the 12th of February, the subject of these mem- 
oirs came into the world. After him came the last 
child, a boy— named Thomas after his father— who 
lived but a fev/ days. No mention of his existence 
is found in the Bible record. 

After Mr. Lincolnt had attained some prominence 



* Most biographers of Lincoln, in speaking of Mr. Lincoln's 
sister, call her Nancy, some— notably Nicolay and Hay— insist- 
ing that she was known by that name among her family and 
friends. In this they are in error. I have interviewed the 
different members of the Hanks and Lincoln families who sur- 
vived the President, and her name was invariably given as 
Sarah. The mistake, I think, arises from the fact that, in the 
Bible record referred to. all that portion relating to the birth 
of "Sarah, daughter of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln," down to 
the word Nancy has been torn away, and the latter name has 
therefore been erroneously taken for that of the daughter. 
Reading the entry of Abraham's birth below satisfies one that 
it must refer to the mother. 

t Regarding the paternity of Lincoln a great many surmises 
and a still larger amount of unwritten or, at least, unpub- 
lished history have drifted into the currents of western lore 
and journalism. A number of such traditions are extant in 
Kentucky and other localities. Mr. V^eik has spent consider- 



6 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

in the world, persons who knew both himself and 
his father were constantly pointing to the want of 
resemblance between the two. The old gentleman 
was not only devoid of energy, and shiftless, but 
dull, and these persons were unable to account 
for the source of his son's ambition and his intel- 
lectual superiority over other men. Hence the 
charge so often made in Kentucky that Mr. Lin- 
coln was in reality the offspring of a Hardin or a 
Marshall, or that he had in his veins the blood of 
some of the noted families who held social and 
intellectual sway in the western part of the State. 
These serious hints were the outgrowth of the 
campaign of 1860, which was conducted with such 
unrelenting prejudice in Kentucky that in the 
county where Lincoln was born only six persons 
could be found who had the courage to vote for 
him.* I remember that after his nomination for 



able time investigating- the truth of a report current in Bourbon 
county, Kentucky, that Thomas Lincoln, for a consideration from 
one Abraham Inlow, a miller there, assumed the paternity of 
the infant child of a poor g-irl named Nancy Hanks ; and, after 
marriage, removed with her to Washington or Hardin county, 
where the son, who was named "Abraham, after his real, and 
Lincoln after his putative, father," was born. A prominent 
citizen of the town of Mount Sterling in that state, who was 
at one time judge of the court and subsequently editor of a 
newspaper, and who was descended from the Abraham Inlow 
mentioned, has written a long argument in support of his 
alleged kinship through this source to Mr. Lincoln. He em- 
phasizes the striking similarity in stature, facial features, and 
length of arms, notwithstanding the well established fact 
that the first-born child of the real Nancy Hanks was not 
a boy but a girl ; and that the marriage did not take place 
in Bourbon, but in Washington county. 

* R. L. Wintersmith, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 7 

the Presidency ]\lr. Lincoln received from Kentucky 
many inquiries about his family and origin. This 
curiosity on the part of the people in one who had 
attained such prominence was perfectly natural, but 
it never pleased him in the least; in fact, to one 
man who was endeavoring to establish a relation- 
ship through the Hanks family he simply answered, 
"You are mistaken about my mother," without 
explaining the mistake or making further mention 
of the matter. Samuel Haycraft, the clerk of the 
court in Hardin county, invited him to visit the 
scenes of his birth and boyhood, which led him to 
say this in a letter, June 4, I860:* "You suggest 
that a visit to the place of my nativity might be 
pleasant to me. Indeed it would, but would it be 
safe? Would not the people lynch me?" That 
reports reflecting on his origin and descent should 
arise in a community in which he felt that his Hfe 
was unsafe is by no means surprising. Abraham 
Lincoln,t the grandfather of the President, emi- 
grated to Jefferson county, Kentucky, from Virginia 
about 1780, and from that time forward the former 
State became an important one in the history of the 
family, for in it was destined to be born its most 
illustrious member. About five years before this, 
a handful of Virginians had started across the 



* Unpublished MS. 

t Regarding the definition of the names "Lincoln" and 
"Hanks" it is said, the first is merely a local name without 
any special meaning, and the second is the old English dimmu- 
tive of "Hal" or "Harry." 



8 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

mountains for Kentucky, and in the company, 
besides their historian, WilHam Calk, — whose diary 
recently came to light, — was one Abraham Hanks. 
They were evidently a crowd of jolly young men 
bent on adventure and fun, but their sport was 
attended with frequent disasters. Their journey 
began at *'Mr. Priges' tavern on the Rapidan." 
When only a few days out ''Hanks' Dog's leg got 
broke." Later in the course of the journey, Hanks 
and another companion became separated from the 
rest of the party and were lost in the mountains for 
two days ; in crossing a stream "Abraham's saddle 
turned over and his load all fell in Indian creek" ; 
finally they meet their brethren from whom they 
have been separated and then pursue their way 
without further interruption. Returning emigrants 
whom they meet, according to the journal of Calk, 
"tell such News of the Indians" that certain mem- 
bers of the company are "afrade to go aney further." 
The following day more or less demoralization 
takes place among the members of this pioneer 
party Vv'hen the announcement is made, as their 
chronicler so faithfully records it, that "Philip 
Drake Bakes bread without washing his hands." 
This was an unpardonable sin, and at it they 
revolted. A day later the record shows that 
"Abram turns Back." Beyond this we shall never 
know what became of Abraham Hanks, for no fur- 
ther mention of him is made in this or any other 
history. He may have returned to Virginia and 
become, for aught we know, one of the President's 
ancestors on the maternal side of the house ; but if 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 9 

SO his illustrious descendant was never able to estab- 
lish the fact or trace his lineage satisfactorily 
beyond the first generation which preceded him. 
He never mentioned who his maternal grandfather 
was, if indeed he knew. 

His paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,* the 
pioneer from Virginia, met his death v/ithin two 
years after his settlement in Kentucky at the hands 
of the Indians ; *'not in battle," as his distinguished 
grandson tells us, "but by steakh, when he was 
laboring to open a farm in the forest." The story 
of his death in sight of his youngest son Thomas, 
then only six years old, is by no means a new one to 
the world. In fact I have often heard the President 
describe the tragedy as he had inherited the story 
from his father. The dead pioneer had three sons, 
Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas, in the order named. 
When the father fell, Mordecai, having hastily sent 
Josiah to the neighboring fort after assistance, ran 
into the cabin, and pointing his rifle through a 
crack between the logs, prepared for defense. 
Presently an Indian came stealing up to the dead 
father's body. Beside the latter sat the little boy 
Thomas. Mordecai took deliberate aim at a silver 
crescent which hung suspended from the Indian's 
breast, and brought him to the ground. Josiah 
returned from the fort with the desired relief, and 



* "They [the Lincolns] were also called Linkhorns. The old 
settlers had a way of pronouncing names not as they were 
spelled, but rather, it seemed, as they pleased. Thus they 
called Medcalf 'Medcap,' and Kaster they pronounced 'Custard.' " 
— MS. letter, Charles Friend, March 19. 1866. 



10 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

the savages were easily dispersed, leaving behind 
one dead and one wounded. 

The tragic death of his father filled Mordecai 
with an intense hatred of the Indians — a feeling 
from which he never recovered. It was ever with 
him like an avenging spirit. From Jefferson county 
he removed to Grayson, where he spent the re- 
mainder of his days. A correspondent* from 
• there wrote me in 1865: ''Old Mordecai was easily 
stirred up by the sight of an Indian. One 
time, hearing of a few Indians passing through 
the county, he mounted his horse, and taking his 
rifle on his shoulder, followed on after them and 
was gone two days. When he returned he said 
he left one lying in a sink hole. The Indians, he 
said, had killed his father, and he was determined 
before he died to have satisfaction." The young- 
est boy, Thomas, retained a vivid recollection of his 
father's death, which, together with other remi- 
niscences of his boyhood, he was fond of relating 
later in life to his children to relieve the tedium 
of long winter evenings. Mordecai and Josiah,t 
both remaining in Kentucky, became the heads of 
good-sized families, and although never known or 



* W. T. Clag-gett, unpublished MS. 

t "I knew Mordecai and Josiah Lincoln intimately. They 
were excellent men, plain, moderately educated, candid in 
their manners and intercourse, and looked upon as honorable 
as any men I have ever heard of. Mordecai was the oldest 
son, and his father having been killed by the Indians before 
the law of primogeniture was repealed, he inherited a very 
competent estate. The others were poor. Mordecai was cele- 
brated for his bravery, and had been in the early campaigns 
of the West."— Henry Pirtle, letter, June 17, 18G5, MS. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. H 

heard of outside the Hmits of the neighborhoods in 
which they Hved, were intelhgent, well-to-do men. 
In Thomas, roving and shiftless, to whom was 
"resented the honor of an illustrious paternity," are 
we alone interested. He was, we are told, five feet 
ten inches high, weighed one hundred and ninety- 
five pounds, had a wxll-rounded face, dark hazel 
eyes, coarse black hair, and was slightly stoop- 
shouldered. His build was so compact that Dennis 
Hanks used to say he could not find the point of 
separation between his ribs. He was proverbially 
slow of movement, mentally and physically; was 
careless, inert, and dull; was sinewy, and gifted 
with great strength; was inoffensively quiet and 
peaceable, but when roused to resistance a danger- 
ous antagonist. He had a liking for jokes and 
stories, which was one of the few traits he trans- 
mitted to his illustrious son; was fond of the chase, 
and had no marked aversion for the bottle, though 
in the latter case he indulged no more freely than 
the average Kentuckian of his day. At the time 
of his marriage to Nancy Hanks he could neither 
read nor write; but his wife, who was gifted with 
more education, and was otherwise his mental supe- 
rior, taught him, it is said, to write his name and 
to read — at least, he was able in later years to spell 
his way slowly through the Bible. In his relig- 
ious belief he first affiliated with the Free-Will 
Baptists. After his removal to Indiana he changed 
his adherence to the Presbyterians — or Predestina- 
rians, as they were then called — and later united 
with the Christian — vulgarly called Campbellite — 



12 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Church, in which latter faith he is supposed to have 
died. He was a carpenter by trade, and essayed 
farming too ; but in this, as in almost every other 
undertaking, he was singularly unsuccessfijl. He 
was placed in possesion of several tracts of land at 
different times in his life, but was never able to pay 
for a single one of them. The farm on which he 
died was one his son purchased, providing a life 
estate therein for him and his wife. He never fell 
in with the routine of labor; was what some people 
would call unfortunate or unlucky in all his business 
ventures — if in reality he ever made one — and died 
near the village of Farmington in Coles county, 
Illinois, on the 17th day of January, 1851. His son, 
on account of sickness in his own family, was 
unable to be present at his father's bedside, or wit- 
ness his death. To those who notified him of his 
probable demise he wrote : "I sincerely hope that 
father may yet recover his health ; but at all events 
tell him to remember to call upon and confide in 
our great and good and merciful Maker, who will 
not turn away from him in any extremity. He 
notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs 
of our heads ; and He will not forget the dying man 
"who puts his trust in him. Say to him that if we 
-could meet now it is doubtful whether it would not 
"be more painful than pleasant; but that if it be his 
lot to go now he will soon have a joyous meeting 
-with the many loved ones gone before, and where 
the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere 
long to join them."* 

* MS. letter to John Johnston, Jan. 12, 1851. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 13 

Nancy Hanks, the mother of the President, at a 
very early age was taken from her mother Lucy — 
afterwards married to Henry Sparrow — and sent to 
live with her aunt and uncle, Thomas and Betsy 
Sparrow. Under this same roof the irrepressible 
and cheerful waif, Dennis Hanks* — whose name will 
be frequently seen in these pages — also found a shel- 
ter. At the time of her marriage to Thomas Lin- 
coln, Nancy was in her twenty-third year. She 
was above the ordinary height in stature, weighed 
about 130 pounds, was slenderly built, and had 
much the appearance of one inclined to consump- 
tion. Her skin was dark; hair dark brown; eyes 
gray and small ; forehead prominent ; face sharp and 
angular, with a marked expression of melancholy 
which fixed itself in the memory of everyone who 
ever saw or knew her. Though her life was seem- 
ingly beclouded by a spirit of sadness, she was in 
disposition amiable and generally cheerful. Mr. 
Lincoln himself said to me in 1851, on receiving 
the news of his father's death, that whatever might 
be said of his parents, and however unpromising the 
early surroundings of his mother may have been, she 
was highly intellectual by nature, had a strong 
memory, acute judgment, and was cool and heroic. 
From a mental standpoint she no doubt rose above 
her surroundings, and had she Uved, the stimulus of 



* Dennis Hanks, still living at the age of ninety years in 
Illinois, was the son of another Nancy Hanks— the aunt of 
the President's mother. I have his written statement that he 
came into the world through nature's back-door. He never 
stated, if he knew it, who his father was. 



14 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

her nature would have accelerated her son's success, 
and she would have been a much more ambitious 
prompter than his father ever was. 

As a family the Hankses were peculiar to the civ- 
ilization of early Kentucky. Illiterate and super- 
stitious, they corresponded to that nomadic class 
still to be met with throughout the South, and 
known as ''poor whites." They are happily and 
vividly depicted in the description of a camp-meet- 
ing held at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in 1806, which 
was furnished me in August, 1865, by an eye-wit- 
ness.* "The Hanks girls," narrates the latter, 
"were great at camp-meetings. I remember one 
in 1806. I will give you a scene, and if you will 
then read the books written on the subject you may 
find some apology for the superstition that was said 
to be in Abe Lincoln's character. It was at a 
camp-meeting, as before said, when a general shout 
was about to commence. Preparations were being 
made; a young lady invited me to stand on a bench 
by her side where we could see all over the altar. 
To the right a strong, athletic young man, about 
twenty-five years old, was being put in trim for the 
occasion, which was done by divesting him of all 
apparel except shirt and pants. On the left a 
young lady was being put in trim in much the same 
manner, so that her clothes would not be in the 
way, and so that, when her combs flew out, her hair 
would go into graceful braids. She, too, was 
yoimg — not more than twenty perhaps. The per- 

* J. B. Helm, MS. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 15 

f ormance commenced about the same time by the 
young man on the right and the young lady on the 
left. Slowly and gracefully they worked their way 
towards the centre, singing, shouting, hugging and 
kissing, generally their own sex, until at last nearer 
and nearer they came. The centre of the altar was 
reached, and the two closed, with their arms around 
each other, the man singing and shouting at the 
top of his voice. 

" 'I have my Jesus in my arms 

Sweet as honey, strong as bacon ham.' 

''Just at this moment the young lady holding to 
my arm whispered, 'They are to be married next 
week; her name is Hanks.' There were very few 
who did not believe this true religion, inspired by 
the Holy Spirit, and the man who could not believe 
it, did well to keep it to himself. The Hankses were 
the finest singers and shouters in our country." 

Here my informant stops, and on account of his 
death several years ago I failed to learn whether 
the young lady shouter who figured in the foregoing 
scene was the President's mother or not. The fact 
that Nancy Hanks did marry that year gives color 
to the belief that it was she. As to the probability 
of the young man being Thomas Lincoln it is diffi- 
cult to say; such a performance as the one de- 
scribed must have required a little more emotion 
and enthusiasm than the tardy and inert carpenter 
was in the habit of manifesting. 



CHAPTER 11. 

Sarah^ the sister of Abraham Lincohi, though in 
some respects Hke her brother, lacked his stature. 
She was thick-set, had dark-brown hair, deep-gray 
eyes, and an even disposition. In contact with 
others she was kind and considerate. Her nature 
was one of amiability, and God had endowed her 
with that invincible combination — modesty and 
good sense. Strange to say, Mr. Lincoln never said 
much about his sister in after years, and we are 
really indebted to the Hankses — Dennis and John — 
for the little we have learned about this rather un- 
fortunate young woman. She was married to 
Aaron Grigsby, in Spencer county, Indiana, in the 
month of August, 1826, and died January 20, 1828. 
Her brother accompanied her to school while they 
lived in Kentucky, but as he was only seven, and 
as she had not yet finished her ninth year when 
their father removed with them to Indiana, it is to 
be presumed that neither made much progress in 
the matter of school education. Still it is authori- 
tatively stated that they attended two schools dur- 
ing this short period. One of these was kept by 
Zachariah Riney, the other by Caleb Hazel. It 
is difficult at this late day to learn much of the boy 
Abraham's life during those seven years of resi- 

16 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 17 

dence in Kentucky. One man,* who was a clerk in 
the principal store in the village where the Lincolns 
purchased their family supplies, remembers him as 
a "small boy who came sometimes to the store with 
his mother. He would take his seat on a keg of 
nails, and I would give him a lump of sugar. He 
would sit there and eat it like any other boy; but 
these little acts of kindness," observes my inform- 
ant, in an enthusiastic statement made in 1865, "so 
impressed his mind that I made a steadfast friend 
in a man whose power and influence have since 
been felt throughout the world." A school-matef 
of Lincoln's at Hazel's school, speaking of the mas- 
ter, says: "He perhaps could teach spelling and 
reading and indifferent writing, and possibly could 
cipher to the rule of three; but he had no other 
qualification of a teacher> unless we accept large size 
and bodily strength. Abe was a mere spindle 
of a boy, had his due proportion of harmless mis- 
chief, but as we lived in a country abounding in 
hazel switches, in the virtue of which the master 
had great faith, Abe of course received his due 
' allowance." 
'/ This part of the boy's history is painfully vague 
and dim, and even after arriving at man's estate 
Mr. Lincoln was significantly reserved when refer- 
ence was made to it. It is barely mentioned in the 
autobiography furnished to Fell in 1859. John 
Duncan,! afterwards a preacher of some promi- 



* John B. Helm, June 20, 1865. 

t Samuel Haycraft. December 6, 1866. 

t Letter, February 21, 1867 



18 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

nence in Kentucky, relates how he and Abe on 
one occasion ran a ground-hog into a crevice be- 
tween two rocks, and after working vainly almost 
two hours to get him out, "Abe ran off about 
a quarter of a mile to a blacksmith shop, and 
returned with an iron hook fastened to the end of a 
pole," and with this rude contrivance they virtually 
■*'hooked" the animal out of his retreat. Austin 
Gollaher of Hodgensville, claims to have saved Lin- 
coln from drowning one day as they were trying to 
^'coon it" across Knob creek on a log. The boys 
were in pursuit of birds, when young Lincoln fell 
into the water, and his vigilant companion, who 
still survives to narrate the thrilling story, fished // 
him out with a sycamore branch. 

Meanwhile Thomas Lincoln was becoming daily 
more dissatisfied with his situation and surround- 
ings. He had purchased, since his marriage, on the 
easy terms then prevalent, two farms or tracts of 
land in succession ; but none was easy enough for 
him, and the land, when the time for the payment of 
the purchase-money rolled around, reverted to its 
former owner. Kentucky, at that day, afforded 
few if any privileges, and possessed fewer advan- 
tages to allure the poor man ; and no doubt so it 
seemed to Thomas Lincoln. The land he occupied 
was sterile and broken. A mere barren glade, and 
destitute of timber, it required a persistent effort to 
coax a living out of it; and to one of his easy-going 
disposition, life there was a never-ending struggle. 
Stories of vast stretches of rich and unoccupied 
lands in Indiana reaching his ears, and despairing of 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 19 

the prospect of any betterment in his condition so 
long as he remained in Kentucky, he resolved, at 
last, to leave the State and seek a more inviting 
lodgment beyond the Ohio. The assertion made 
by some of Mr. Lincoln's biographers, and so often 
repeated by sentimental writers, that his father left 
Kentucky to avoid the sight of or contact with 
slavery, lacks confirmation. In all Hardin county 
— at that time a large area of territory — there 
were not over fifty slaves; and it is doubtful if he 
saw enough of slavery to fill him with the righteous 
opposition to the institution with which he has so 
frequently been credited. Moreover, he never in 
later years manifested any especial aversion to 
it. 

Having determined on emigrating to Indiana, he 
began preparations for removal in the fall of 1816 
by building for his use a fiat-boat. Loading it with 
his tools and other personal effects, including in the 
invoice, as we are told, four hundred gallons of 
whiskey, he launched his "crazy craft" on a tribu- 
tary of Salt creek known as the Rolling Fork. 
Along with the current he floated down to the Ohio 
river, but his rudely-made vessel, either from the 
want of experience in its navigator, or because of 
its ill adaptation to withstand the force and caprices 
of the currents in the great river, capsized one day, 
and boat and cargo went to the bottom. The luck- 
less boatman set to work however, and by dint of 
great patience and labor succeeded in recovering 
the tools and the bulk of the whiskey. Righting 
his boat, he continued down the river, landing at a 



20 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

point called Thompson's Ferry, in Perry county, on 
the Indiana side. Here he disposed of his vessel, 
and placing his goods in the care of a settler named 
Posey, he struck out through the interior in search 
of a location for his new home. Sixteen miles back 
from the river he found one that pleased his fancy, 
and he m.arked it off for himself. His next move in 
the order of business was a journey to Vincennes to- 
purchase the tract at the Land Office — under the 
**two-dollar-an-acre law," as Dennis Hanks puts it 
— and a return to the land to identify it by blazing 
the trees and piling up brush on the corners to 
establish the proper boundary lines. Having se- 
cured a place for his home he trudged back to Ken- 
tucky — walking all the way — for his family. Two 
horses brought them and all their household effects 
to the Indiana shore. Posey kindly gave or hired 
them the use of a wagon, into which they packed 
not only their furniture and carpenter tools, but the 
liquor, which it is presumed had lain undisturbed in 
the former's cellar. Slowly and carefully picking 
their way through the dense woods, they at last 
reached their destination on the banks of Little 
Pigeon creek. There were some detentions on the 
way, but no serious mishaps. 

The head of the household now set resolutely to 
work to build a shelter for his family. 

The structure, when completed, was fourteen feet 
square, and was built of small unhewn logs. In the 
language of the day, it was called a "half-faced 
camp," being enclosed on all sides but one. It had 
neither floor, door, nor windows. In this forbidding 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 21 

hovel these doughty emigrants braved the exposure 
of the varying seasons for an entire year. At the 
end of that time Thomas and Betsy Sparrow fol- 
lowed, bringing with them Dennis Hanks ; and to 
them Thomas Lincoln surrendered the ''half-faced 
camp," while he moved into a more pretentious 
structure — a cabin enclosed on all sides. The coun- 
try was thickly covered with forests of walnut, 
beech, oak, elm, maple, and an undergrowth of 
dog-wood, sumac, and wild grape-vine. In places 
where the growth was not so thick grass came up 
abundantly, and hogs found plenty of food in the 
unlimited quantity of mast the woods afforded. 
The country abounded in bear, deer, turkey, and 
other wild game, which not only satisfied the 
pioneer's love for sport, but furnished his table with 
its supply of meat. 

Thomas Lincoln, with the aid of the Hankses and 
Sparrows, was for a time an attentive farmer. The 
implements of agricuhure then in use were as rude 
as they were rare, and yet there is nothing to show 
that in spite of the slow methods then in vogue he 
did not make commendable speed. "We raised 
corn mostly" — relates Dennis — "and some wheat — 
enough for a cake Sunday morning. Hog and veni- 
son hams were a legal tender, and coon skins also. 
We raised sheep and cattle, but they did not bring 
much. Cows and calves were only worth six to 
eight dollars; corn ten cents, and wheat twenty-five 
cents, a bushel." So with all his application and 
frugality the head of this ill-assorted household 



22 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

made but little headway in the accumulation of the 
world's goods. We are told that he was indeed a 
poor man, and that during his entire stay in Indi- 
ana his land barely yielded him sufficient return to 
keep his larder supplied with the most common 
necessities of life. His skill as a hunter — though 
never brought into play unless at the angered de- 
mand of a stomach hungry for meat — in no slight 
degree made up for the lack of good management 
in the cultivation of his land. His son Abraham* 
never evinced the same fondness for hunting, 
although his cousin Dennis with much pride tells 
us how he could kill a wild turkey on the wing. 
"At that time," relates one of the latter's play- 
mates,t descanting on the abundance of wild game, 
"there were a great many deer-licks ; and Abe and 
myself would go to these licks sometimes and watch 
of nights to kill deer, though Abe was not so fond 
of a gun or the sport as I was. "J 



* "Abe was a good boy — an affectionate one — a boy who 
loved his parents weU and was obedient to their every wish. 
Although anything but an impudent or rude bo5^ he was some- 
times uncomfortably inquisitive. When strangers would 
ride along or pass by his father's fence he always — either 
through boyish- pride or to tease his father — would be sure to 
ask the first question. His father would sometimes knock 
him over. When thus punished he never bellowed, but dropped 
a kind of silent, unwelcome tear as evidence of his sensitive- 
ness or other feelings." — Dennis Hanks, MS., June 13, 1865. 

t David Turnham, MS. letter, June 10, 1866. 

t Mr. Lincoln used to relate the following "coon" story : His 
father had at home a little yellow house-dog, which invariably 
gave the alarm if the boys undertook to slip away unobserved 
after night had set in — as they oftentimes did — to go coon 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 23 

The cabin to which the Lincoln family removed 
after leaving the little half-faced camp to the Spar- 
rows was in some respects a pretentious structure. It 
was of hewed logs, and was eighteen feet square. It 
was high enough to admit of a loft, where Abe slept, 
and to which he ascended each night by means of 
pegs driven in the wall. The rude furniture was 
in keeping with the surroundings. Three-legged 
stools answered for chairs. The bedstead, made of 
poles fastened in the cracks of the logs on one side, 
and supported by a crotched stick driven in the 
ground floor on the other, was covered with skins, 
leaves, and old clothes. A table of the same finish 
as the stools, a few pewter dishes, a Dutch oven, 
and a skillet completed the household outfit. In 
this uninviting frontier structure the future Pres- 
ident was destined to pass the greater part of his 
boyhood. vVithal his spirits were light, and it can- 



hunting. C ne evening Abe and his step-brother, John Johnston, 
with the rsual complement of boys required in a successful coon 
hunt, tooK the insignificant little cur with them. They located 
the coveted coon, killed him, and then in a sportive vein sewed 
the hide on the diminutive yellow dog. The latter struggled 
vigorously during the operation of sewing on, and being re- 
leased from the hands of his captors made a bee-line for home. 
Other large and more important canines, on the way, scenting 
coon, tracked the little animal home, and possibly mistaking 
him for real coon, speedily demolished him. The next morn- 
ing old Thomas Lincoln discovered lying in his yard the life- 
less remains of yellow "Joe," with strong proof of coon-skin 
accompaniment. "Father was much incensed at his death," ob- 
served Mr. Lincoln, in relating the story, but as John and I, 
scantily protected from the morning wind, stood shivering in 
the doorway, we felt assured little yellow Joe would never be 
able again to sound the call for another coon hunt." 



24 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

not be denied that he must have enjoyed unre- 
strained pleasure in his surroundings. It is related 
that one day the only thing that graced the dinner- 
table was a dish of roasted potatoes. The elder 
Lincoln, true to the custom of the day, returned 
thanks for the blessing. The boy, realizing the 
scant proportions of the meal, looked up into his 
father's face and irreverently observed, "Dad, I call 
these'' — meaning the potatoes — "mighty poor bless- 
ings." Among other children of a similar age he 
seemed unconsciously to take the lead, and it is no 
stretch of the truth to say that they, in turn, looked 
up to him. He may have been a little precocious — 
children sometimes are — but in view of the summary 
treatment received at the hands of his father it 
cannot truthfully be said he was a "spoiled child." 
One morning when his mother was at work he ran 
into the cabin from the outside to enquire, with a 
quizzical grin, "Who was the father of Zebedee's 
children?" As many another mother lefore and 
since has done, she brushed the mischievous young 
inquirer aside to attend to some more important 
detail of household concern.* 

The dull routine of chores and household errands 
in the boy's every-day life was brightened now and 
then by a visit to the mill. I often in later years 
heard Mr. Lincoln say that going to mill gave him 
the greatest pleasure of his boyhood days. 

"We had to go seven miles to mill," relates 
David Turnham, the friend of his youth, "and then 



* Harriet Chapman, MS. letter. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 25 

it was a hand-mill that would only grind from fif- 
teen to twenty bushels of corn in a day. There 
was but little wheat grown at that time, and when 
we did have wheat we had to grind it in the mill 
described and use it without bolting, as there were 
no bolts in the country. Abe and I had to do the 
milling, frequently going twice to get one grist." 

In his eleventh year he began that marvellous and 
rapid growth in stature for which he was so widely 
noted in the Pigeon creek settlement. "As he 
shot up," says Turnham, "he seemed to change in 
appearance and action. Although quick-witted and 
ready with an answer, he began to exhibit deep 
thoughtfulness, and was so often lost in studied 
reflection we could not help noticing the strange 
turn in his actions. He disclosed rare timidity and 
sensitiveness, especially in the presence of men and 
women, and although cheerful enough in the pres- 
ence of the boys, he did not appear to seek our 
company as earnestly as before."* It was only the 
development we find in the history of every boy. 
Nature was a little abrupt in the case of Abraham 
Lincoln; she tossed him from the nimbleness of 
boyhood to the gravity of manhood in a single 
night. 

In the fall of 1818, the scantily settled region in 
the vicinity of Pigeon creek— where the Lincolns 
were then living— suffered a visitation of that dread 
disease common in the West in early days, and 
known in the vernacular of the frontier as "the 



D. Turnham, MS. letter. 



26 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

milk-sick." It hovered like a spectre over the Pig- 
eon creek settlement for over ten years, and its 
fatal visitation and inroads among the Lincolns, 
Hankses, and Sparrows finally drove that contin- 
gent into Illinois. To this day the medical profes- 
sion has never agreed upon any definite cause for 
the malady, nor have they in all their scientific 
wrangling determined exactly what the disease it- 
self is. A physician, who has in his practice met a 
number of cases, describes the symptoms to be "a 
whitish coat on the tongue, burning sensation of 
the stomach, severe vomiting, obstinate constipa- 
tion of the bowels, coolness of the extremities, 
great restlessness and jactitation, pulse rather small, 
somewhat more frequent than natural, and slightly 
chorded. In the course of the disease the coat on 
the tongue becomes brownish and dark, the counte- 
nance dejected, and the prostration of the patient is 
great. A fatal termination may take place in sixty 
hours, or life may be prolonged for a period of four- 
teen days. These are the symptoms of the disease 
in an acute form. Sometimes it runs into the 
chronic form, or it may assume that form from the 
commencement, and after months or years the 
patient may finally die or recover only a partial 
degree of health." 

When the disease broke out in the Pigeon creek 
region it not only took off the people, but it made 
sad havoc among the cattle. One man testifies 
that he "lost four milch cows and eleven calves in 
one week." This, in addition to the risk of losing 
his own life, was enough, he declared, to ruin him, 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 27 

and prompted him to leave for ''points further 
west." 

Early in October of the year 1818, Thomas and 
Betsy Sparrow fell ill of the disease and died with- 
in a few days of each other. Thomas Lincoln per- 
formed the services of undertaker. With his whip- 
saw he cut out the lumber, and with commendable 
promptness he nailed together the rude coffins to 
enclose the forms of the dead. The bodies were 
borne to a scantily cleared knoll in the midst of the 
forest, and there, without ceremony, quietly let 
down into the grave. Meanwhile Abe's mother 
had also fallen a victim to the insidious disease. 
Her suiYerings, however, were destined to be of 
brief duration. Within a week she too rested from 
her labors. "She struggled on, day by day," says 
one of the household, "a. good Christian woman, 
and died on the seventh day after she was taken 
sick. Abe and his sister Sarah waited on their 
mother, and did the little jobs and errands required 
of them. There was no physician nearer than 
thirty-five miles. The mother knew she was going 
to die, and called the children to her bedside. She 
was very weak, and the children leaned over while 
- she gave her last message. Placing her feeble hand 
on little Abe's head she told him to be kind and 
good to his father and sister; to both she said, *Be 
good to one another,' expressing a hope that they 
might live, as they had been taught by her, to love 
their kindred and worship God." Amid the misera- 
ble surroundings of a home in the widerness Nancy 
Hanks passed across the dark river. Though of 



.-28 ^^-^ ^l^E ^F LINCOLN, 

-lowly birth, the victim of poverty and hard usage. 
:she takes a place in history as the mother of a son 
^who liberated a race of men. At her side stands 
another Mother whose son performed a similar ser- 
vice for all mankind eighteen hundred years before. 
After the death of their mother little Abe and 
his sister Sarah began a dreary life — indeed, one 
more cheerless and less inviting seldom falls to the 
lot of any child. In a log-cabin without a floor, 
scantily protected from the severities of the 
weather, deprived of the comfort of a mother's love, 
they passed through a winter the most dismal either 
one ever experienced. Within a few months, and 
before the close of the winter, David Elkin, an 
itinerant preacher whom Mrs. Lincoln had known 
in Kentucky, happened into the settlement, and in 
response to the invitation from the family and 
friends, delivered a funeral sermon over her grave. 
No one is able now to remember the language of 
Parson Elkin's discourse, but it is recalled that he 
commemorated the virtues and good phases of 
character, and passed in silence the few short- 
comings and frailties of the poor woman sleeping 
under the winter's snow. She had done her work 
in this world. Stoop-shouldered, thin-breasted, sad, 
— at times miserable, — groping through the per- 
plexities of life, without prospect of any betterment 
in her condition, she passed from earth, little 
dreaming of the grand future that lay in store for 
the ragged, hapless little boy who stood at her bed- 
side in the last days of her life. 

Thomas Lincoln's widowerhood was brief. He 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 29 

had scarcely mourned the death of his first wife a 
year until he reappeared in Kentucky at Elizabeth- 
town in search of another. His admiration had 
centred for a second time on Sally Bush, the 
widow of Daniel Johnston, the jailer of Hardin 
county, who had died several years before of a 
disease known as the "cold plague." The tradition 
still kept alive in the Kentucky neighborhood is 
that Lincoln had been a suitor for the hand of the 
lady before his marriage to Nancy Hanks, but that 
she had rejected him for the hand of the more fortu- 
nate Johnston. However that may have been, it is 
certain that he began his campaign in earnest this 
time, and after a brief siege won her heart. "He 
made a very short courtship," wrote Samuel Hay- 
craft* to me in a letter, December 7, 1866. "He 
came to see her on the first day of December, 1819, 
and in a straightforward manner told her that they 
had known each other from childhood. 'Miss John- 
ston,' said he, 'I have no wife and you no husband. 
I came a-purpose to marry you. I knowed you 
from a gal and you knowed me from a boy. I've 
no time to lose; and if you're willin' let it be done 
straight ofif.' She replied that she could not marry 
him right off, as she had some little debts which she 
wanted to pay first. He replied, 'Give me a list of 
them.' He got the list and paid them that even- 
ing. Next morning I issued the license, and they 
were married within sixty yards of my house." 
Lincoln's brother-in-law, Ralph Krume, and his 



• Clerk of the Court. 



30 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

four horses and spacious wagon were again brought 
into requisition. With commendable generosity 
he transported the newly married pair and their 
household effects to their home in Indiana. The 
new Mrs. Lincoln was accompanied by her three 
children, John, Sarah, and Matilda. Her social 
status is fixed by the comparison of a neighbor, who 
observed that "life among the Hankses, the Lin- 
colns, and the Enlows was a long ways below life 
among the Bushes." 

In the eyes of her spouse she could not be re- 
garded as a poor widow. She was the owner of a 
goodly stock of furniture and household goods ; 
bringing with her among other things a walnut 
bureau valued at fifty dollars. What effect the new 
family, their collection of furniture, cooking uten- 
sils, and comfortable bedding must have had on the 
astonished and motherless pair who from the door 
of Thomas Lincoln's forlorn cabin watched the well- 
filled wagon as it came creaking through the woods 
can better be imagined than described. Surely 
Sarah and Abe, as the stores of supplies were rolled 
in through the doorless doorways, must have be- 
lieved that a golden future awaited them. The 
presence and smile of a motherly face in the cheer- 
less cabin radiated sunshine into every neglected 
corner. If the Lincoln mansion did not in every 
respect correspond to the representations made by 
its owner to the new Mrs. Lincoln before marriage, 
the latter gave no expression of disappointment or 
even surprise. With true womanly courage and 
zeal she set resolutely to work to make right that 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 31 

which seemed wrong. Her husband was made to 
put a floor in the cabin, as well as to supply doors 
and windows. The cracks between the logs were 
plastered up. A clothes-press filled the space 
between the chimney jamb and the wall, and the 
mat of corn husks and leaves on which the children 
had slept in the corner gave way to the comfortable 
luxuriance of a feather bed. She washed the two 
orphans, and fitted them out in clothes taken from 
the stores of her own. The work of renovation in 
and around the cabin continued until even Thomas 
Lincoln himself, under the general stimulus of the 
new wife's presence, caught the inspiration, and 
developed signs of intense activity. The advent of 
Sarah Bush was certainly a red-letter day for the 
Lincolns. She was not only industrious and thrifty, 
but gentle and affectionate ; and her newly adopted 
children for the first time, perhaps, realized the be- 
nign influence of a mother's love. Of young Abe 
she was especially fond, and we have her testimony 
that her kindness and care for him were warmly and 
bountifully returned. Her granddaughter furnished 
me* in after years with this description of her: 

''My grandmother is a very tall woman, straight 
as an Indian, of fair complexion, and was, when I 
first remember her, very handsome, sprightly, talk- 
ative, and proud. She wore her hair curled till gray ; 
is kind-hearted and very charitable, and also very 
industrious." In September, 1865, I visited the old 



Harriet Chapman. 



32 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

lady* and spent an entire day with her. She was 
then living on the farm her stepson had purchased 
and given her, eight miles south of the town of 
Charleston, in Illinois. She died on the 10th of 
April, 1869. 

The two sets of children in the Lincoln house- 
hold — to their credit be it said — lived together in 
perfect accord. Abe was in his tenth year, and his 
stepmother, awake to the importance of an educa- 
tion, made a way for him to attend school. To her 
he seemed full of promise ; and although not so 
quick of comprehension as other boys, yet she 
believed in encouraging his every effort. He had 
had a few weeks of schooling under Riney and 
Hazel in Kentucky, but it is hardly probable that 
he could read ; he certainly could not write. As 
illustrating his moral make-up, I diverge from the 
chronological order of the narrative long enough to 
relate an incident which occurred some years later. 
In the Lincoln family, Matilda Johnston, or 'Tilda, 



* During my interview with this old lady I was much and 
deeply impressed with the sincerity of her affection for her 
illustrious stepson. She declined to say much in answer to my 
questions about Nancy Hanks, her predecessor in the Lincoln 
household, but spoke feelingly of the latter's daughter and 
son. Describing Mr. Lincoln's last visit to her in February, 
1861, she broke into tears and wept bitterly. "I did not want 
Abe to run for President," she sobbed, "and did not want to 
see him elected. I was afraid that something would happen 
to him, and when he came down to see me, after he was 
elected President, I still felt, and my heart told me, that some- 
thing would befall Abe, and that T should never see him again. 
Abe and his father are in heaven now, I am sure, and I ex- 
pect soon to go there and meet them." 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 33 

as her mother called her, was the youngest child. 
After Abe had reached the estate of manhood, she 
was still in her 'teens. It was Abe's habit each 
morning one fall, to leave the house early, his axe 
on his shoulder, to clear a piece of forest which lay 
some distance from home. He frequently carried 
his dinner with him, and remained all day. Several 
times the young and frolicsome 'Tilda sought to 
accompany him, but was each time restrained by 
her mother, who firmly forbade a repetition of the 
attempt. One morning the girl escaped maternal 
vigilance, and slyly followed after the young wood- 
man, who had gone some distance from the house, 
and was already hidden from view behind the dense 
growth of trees and underbrush. Following a deer- 
path, he went singing along, little dreaming of the 
girl in close pursuit. The latter gained on him, 
and when within a few feet, darted forward and 
with a cat-like leap landed squarely on his back. 
With one hand on each shoulder, she planted her 
knee in the middle of his back, and dexterously 
brought the powerful frame of the rail-splitter to 
the ground. It was a trick familiar to every 
schoolboy. Abe, taken by surprise, was unable at 
first to turn around or learn who his assailant was. 
In the fall to the ground, the sharp edge of the axe 
imbedded itself in the young lady's ankle, inflicting 
a wound from which there came a generous effu- 
sion of blood. With sundry pieces of cloth 
torn from Abe's shirt and the young lady's 
dress, the flow of blood was stanched, and the 
wound rudely bound up. The girl's cries having 



34 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

lessened somewhat, her tall companion, looking at 
her in blank astonishment, knowing what an in- 
fraction the whole thing was of her mother's oft- 
repeated instructions, asked ; " 'Tilda, what are 
you going to tell mother about getting hurt?" 

''Tell her I did it with the axe," she sobbed. 
'That will be the truth, won't it?" To which last 
inquiry Abe manfully responded, 

"Yes, that's the truth, but it's not all the truth. 
Tell the whole truth, 'Tilda, and trust your good 
mother for the rest." 

This incident was, many years afterward, related 
to me by 'Tilda, who was then the mother of a 
devoted and interesting family herself. 

Hazel Dorsey was Abe's first teacher in Indiana. 
He held forth a mile and a half from the Lincoln 
farm. The school-house was built of round logs, 
and was just high enough for a man to stand erect 
under the loft. The floor was of split logs, or 
what were called puncheons. The chimney was 
made of poles and clay ; and the windows were 
made by cutting out parts of two logs, placing 
pieces of split boards a proper distance apart, and 
over the aperture thus formed pasting pieces 
of greased paper to admit light. At school Abe 
evinced ability enough to gain him a prominent 
place in the respect of the teacher and the affec- 
tions of his fellow-scholars.* Elements of leader- 



* "He always appeared to be very quiet during- playtime ; 
never was rude; seemed to have a liking for solitude; was the 
one chosen in almost every case to adjust difficulties between 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 35 

ship in him seem to have manifested themselves 
already. Nathaniel Grigsby— whose brother, Aaron, 
afterwards married Abe's sister, Sarah — attended 
the same school. He certifies to Abe's proficiency 
and worth in glowing terms. 

"He was always at school early," writes Grigsby, 
''and attended to his studies. He w^as always at 
the head of his class, and passed us rapidly in his 
studies. He lost no time at home, and when he 
was not at work was at his books. He kept up his 
studies on Sunday, and carried his books with him 
to work, so that he might read when he rested from 
labor." Now and then, the family exchequer run- 
ning low, it would be found necessary for the 
young rail-splitter to stop school, and either work 
with his father on the farm, or render like service 
for the neighbors. These periods of work occurred 
so often and continued so long, that all his school 
days added together would not make a year in the 
aggregate. When he attended school, his sister 
Sarah usually accompanied him. "Sally was a 
quick-minded young woman," is the testimony of a 
school-mate. "She was more industrious than Abe, 
in my opinion. I can hear her good-humored 
laugh now. Like her brother, she could greet you 
kindly and put you at ease. She w^as really an 
intelligent woman."* 



boys of his age and size, and when appealed to, his decision 
was an end of the trouble. He was also rather noted for 
keeping his clothes clean longer than any of the others, and 
although considered a boy of courage, had few, if any, diffi- 
culties." — E. R. Burba, letter, March 31, 1866. 
* Nat GJrigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, MS. 



36 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Abe's love for books, and his determined effort to 
obtain an education in spite of so many obstacles, 
induced the belief in his father's mind, that book- 
learning was absorbing a greater proportion of his 
energy and industry than the demands of the farm. 
The old gentleman had but little faith in the value 
of books or papers,* and hence the frequent drafts 
he made on the son to aid in the drudgery of daily 
toil. He undertook to teach him his own tradef — 
he was a carpenter and joiner — but Abe manifested 
such a striking want of interest that the effort to 
make a carpenter of him was soon abandoned. 

At Dorsey's school Abe was ten years old ; at 
the next one, Andrew Crawford's he was about 
fourteen; and at Swaney's he was in his seven- 
teenth year. The last school required a walk of 
over four miles, and on account of the distance 
his attendance was not only irregular but brief. 
Schoolmaster Crawford introduced a new feature 
in his school, and we can imagine its effect on 
his pupils, whose training had been limited to the 



* "I induced my husband to permit Abe to read and study at 
home as well as at school. At first he was not easily recon- 
ciled to it, but finally he too seemed willing to encourage him 
to a certain extent. Abe was a dutiful son to me always, and 
we took particular care when he was reading- not to disturb him 
— would let him read on and on till he quit of his own ac- 
cord." — Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, Sept. 8, 1865. 

t A little walnut cabinet, two feet high, and containing two 
rows of neat drawers, now in the possession of Captain J. W. 
Wartmann, clerk of the United States Court in Evansville, Ind., 
is carefully preserved as a specimen of the joint work of Lin- 
coln and his father at this time. — J. W. W. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 37 

social requirements of the backwoods settlement. 
It was instruction in manners. One scholar was 
required to go outside, and re-enter the room as a 
lady or gentleman would enter a drawing-room or 
parlor. Another scholar would receive the first 
party at the door, and escort him or her about the 
room, making polite introductions to each person in 
the room. How the gaunt and clumsy Abe went 
through this performance we shall probably never 
know. If his awkward movements gave rise to any 
amusement, his school-mates never revealed it. 

The books used at school were Webster's Spell- 
ing Book and the American Speller. All the 
scholars learned to cipher, and afterwards used 
Pike's Arithmetic. Mr. Lincoln told me in later 
/years that Murray's English Reader was the best 
(school-book ever put into the hands of an Amer- 
ican youth. I conclude, therefore, he must have 
used that also. At Crawford's school Abe was 
credited with the authorship of several literary 
efforts— short dissertations in which he strove to 
correct some time-honored and wanton sport of the 
schoolboy. While in Indiana I met several persons 
who recalled a commendable and somewhat preten- 
tious protest he wrote against cruelty to animals. 
The wholesome eflfects of a temperate life and the 
horrors of war were also subjects which claimed the 
services of his pen then, as they in later years 
demanded the devoted attention of his mind and 
heart. 

He was now over six feet high and was growing 
at a tremendous rate, for he added tv/o inches more 



38 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

before the close of his seventeenth year, thus reach- 
ing the hmit of his stature. He weighed in the 
region of a hundred and sixty pounds ; was wiry, 
vigorous, and strong. His feet and hands were 
large, arms and legs long and in striking contrast 
with his slender trunk and small head. "His skin 
was shrivelled and yellow," declares one of the 
girls* who attended Crawford's school. "His 
shoes, when he had any, were low. He wore buck- 
skin breeches, linsey-woolsey shirt, and a cap made 
of the skin of a squirrel or coon. His breeches 
were baggy and lacked by several inches meeting 
the tops of his shoes, thereby exposing his shin- 
bone, "sharp, blue, and narrow." In one branch of 
school learning he was a great success ; that was 
spelling. We are indebted to Kate Roby, a pretty 
miss of fifteen, for an incident which illustrates 
alike his proficiency in orthography and his natural 
inclination to help another out of the mire. The 
word "defied" had been given out by Schoolmaster 
Crawford, but had been misspelled several times 
when it came Miss Roby's turn. "Abe stood on 
the opposite side of the room" (related Miss Robyf 
to me in 1865) "and was watching me. I began 
d-e-f — and then I stopped, hesitating whether to 
proceed with an 'i' or a V'. Looking up I beheld 
Abe, a grin covering his face, and pointing with his 
index finger to his eye. I took the hint, spelled 
the word with an 'i,' and it went through all right." 



* Kate Gentry. 

t Miss Roby afterward married Allen Gentry. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 39 

There was more or less of an attachment between 
Miss Roby and Abe, although the lady took pains 
to assure me that they were never in love. She 
described with self-evident pleasure, however, the 
delightful experience of an evening's stroll down to 
the river with him, where they were wont to sit on 
the bank and watch the moon as it slowly rose over 
the neighboring hills. Dangling their youthful feet 
in the water, they gazed on the pale orb of night, as 
many a fond pair before them had done and will 
continue to do until the end of the world. One 
evening, when thus engaged, their conversation and 
thoughts turned on the movement of the planets. 
*T did not suppose that Abe, who had seen so little 
of the world, would know anything about it, but he 
proved to my satisfaction that the moon did not go 
down at all ; that it only seemed to ; that the earth, 
revolving from west to east, carried us under, as it 
were. 'We do the sinking,' he explained; *while 
to us the moon is comparatively still. The moon's 
sinking is only an illusion.' I at once dubbed him 
a fool, but later developments convinced me that I 
was the fool, not he. He was well acquainted with 
the general laws of astronomy and the movements 
of the heavenly bodies, but where he could have 
learned so much, or how to put it so plainly, I never 
could understand." 

Absalom Roby is authority for the statement 
that even at that early day Abe was a patient 
reader of a Louisville newspaper, which some one 
at Gentryville kindly furnished him. Among the 
books he read were the Bible, "yEsop's Fables," 



40 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

''Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's Progress," 
a ''History of the United States," and Weems' 
"Life of Washington." A little circumstance at- 
tended the reading of the last-named book, which 
only within recent years found its way into public 
print. The book was borrowed from a close-fisted 
neighbor, Josiah Crawford, and one night, while 
lying on a little shelf near a crack between two logs 
in the Lincoln cabin during a storm, the covers 
were damaged by rain. Crawford — not the school- 
master, but old Blue Nose, as Abe and others called 
him — assessed the damage to his book at seventy- 
five cents, and the unfortunate borrower was re- 
quired to pull fodder for three days at twenty-five 
cents a day in settlement of the account. While at 
school it is doubtful if he was able to own an arith- 
metic. His stepmother was unable to remember 
his ever having owned one. She gave me, how- 
ever, a few leaves from a book made and bound by 
Abe, in which he had entered, in a large, bold hand, 
the tables of weights and measures, and the "sums" 
to be worked out in illustration of each table. 
Where the arithmetic was obtained I could not 
learn. On one of the pages w^iich the old lady 
gave me, and just underneath the table which tells 
how many pints there are in a bushel, the facetious 
young student had scrawled these four lines of 
schoolboy doggerel: 



"Abraham Lincoln, 
His hand and pen. 
He will be good. 

But God knows when. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 41 

On another page were found, in his own hand, a few 
lines which it is also said he composed. Nothing 
indicates that they were borrowed, and I have 
always, therefore, believed that they were original 
with him. Although a little irregular in metre, the 
sentiment would, I think, do credit to an older 
head. 



"Time, what an empty vapor 'tis, 

And days how swift they are: 
Swift as an Indian arrow — 

Fly on like a shooting star. 
The present moment just is here, 

Then slides away in haste, 
That we can never say they're ours. 

But only say they're past." 



His penmanship, after some practice, became so re- 
gular in form that it excited the admiration of other 
and younger boys. One of the latter Joseph C. 
Richardson, said that "Abe Lincoln was the best 
penman in the neighborhood." At Richardson's 
request he made some copies for practice. During 
my visit to Indiana I met Richardson, who showed 
these two lines, which Abe had prepared for him: 



'Good boys who to their books apply 
Will all be great men by and by." 



To comprehend Mr. Lincoln fully we must know 
in substance not only the facts of his origin, but 
also the manner of his development. It will 
always be a matter of wonder to the American 
people, I have no doubt — as it has been to me — 
that from such restricted and unpromising opportu- 



42 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

nities in early life, Mr. Lincoln grew into the great 
man he was. The foundation for his education was 
laid in Indiana and in the little town of New Salem 
in lUinois, and in both places he gave evidence of a 
nature and characteristics that distinguished him 
from every associate and surrounding he had. He 
was not peculiar or eccentric, and yet a shrewd 
observer would have seen that he was decidedly 
unique and original. Although imbued with a 
marked dislike for manual labor, it cannot be truth- 
fully said of him that he was indolent. From a 
mental standpoint he was one of the most ener- 
getic young men of his day. He dwelt altogether 
in the land of thought. His deep meditation and 
abstraction easily induced the belief among his 
horny-handed companions that he was lazy. In 
fact, a neighbor, John Romine, makes that charge. 
"He worked for me," testifies the latter, ''but was 
always reading and thinking. I used to get mad at 
him for it. I say he was awful lazy. He would 
laugh and talk — crack his jokes and tell stories all 
the time ; didn't love work half as much as his pay. 
He said to me one day that his father taught him 
to work; but he never taught him to love it." Ver- 
ily there was but one Abraham Lincoln ! 

His chief delight during the day, if unmolested, 
was to lie down under the shade of some inviting 
tree to read and study. At night, lying on his 
stomach in front of the open fireplace, with a piece 
of charcoal he would cipher on a broad, wooden 
shovel. When the latter was covered over on both 
sides he would take his father's drawing knife or 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 43, 

plane and shave it off clean, ready for a fresh supply 
of inscriptions the next day. He often moved about 
the cabin with a piece of chalk, writing and cipher- 
ing on boards and the flat sides of hewn logs. When 
every bare wooden surface had been filled with his 
letters and ciphers he would erase them and being 
anew. Thus it was always ; and the boy whom 
dull old Thomas Lincoln and rustic John Romine 
conceived to be lazy was in reality the most tireless 
worker in all the region around Gentryville. His step- 
mother told me he devoured everything in the book 
line within his reach. If in his reading he came 
across anything that pleased his fancy, he entered 
it down in a copy-book — a sort of repository, in which 
he was wont to store everything worthy of preserva- 
tion. "Frequently," related his stepmother, "he 
had no paper to write his pieces down on. Then he 
would put them with chalk on a board or plank, 
sometimes only making a few signs of what he 
intended to write. When he got paper he would 
copy them, always bringing them to me and reading 
them. He would ask my opinion of what he had 
read, and often explained things to me in his plain 
and simple language." How he contrived at the 
age of fourteen to absorb information is thus told 
by John Hanks : "When Abe and I returned to 
the house from work he would go to the cupboard, 
snatch a piece of corn bread, sit down, take a book, 
cock his legs up as high as his head, and read. We 
grubbed, plowed, mowed, and worked together bare- 
footed in the field. Whenever Abe had a chance 
in the field while at work, or at the house, he 



44 'J^HE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

would Stop and read." He kept the Bible and 
"^sop's Fables" always within reach, and read them 
over and over again. These two volumes furnished 
him with the many figures of speech and parables 
which he used with such happy effect in his later 
and public utterances. 

Amid such restricted and unromantic environ- 
ments the boy developed into the man. The intel- 
lectual fire burned slowly, but with a steady and 
intense glow. Although denied the requisite train- 
ing of the school-room, he was none the less com- 
petent to cope with those who had undergone that 
discipline. No one had a more retentive memory. 
If he read or heard a good thing it never escaped 
him. His powers of concentration were intense, 
and in the ability through analysis to strip bare a 
proposition he was unexcelled. His thoughtful and 
investigating mind dug down after ideas, and never 
stopped till bottom facts were reached. With such 
a mental equipment the day was destined to come 
when the world would need the services of his intel- 
lect and heart. That he was equal to the great 
task when the demand came is but another striking 
proof of the grandeur of his character. 



CHAPTER III. 

The first law book Lincoln ever read was ''The 
Statutes of Indiana." He obtained the volume from 
his friend David Turnham, who testifies that he 
fairly devoured the book in his eager efforts to 
abstract the store of knowledge that lay between the 
lids. No doubt, as Turnham insists, the study of 
the statutes at this early day led Abe to think of 
the law as his calling in maturer years. At any rate 
he now began to evince no little zeal in the matter 
of public speaking — in compliance with the old 
notion, no doubt, that a lawyer can never succeed 
unless he has the elements of the orator or advocate 
in his construction — and even when at work in the 
field he could not resist the temptation to mount 
the nearest stump and practise on his fellow labor- 
ers. The latter would flock around him, and active 
operations would cease whenever he began. A 
cluster of tall and stately trees often made him a 
most dignified and appreciative audience during the 
delivery of these maiden forensic efforts. He was 
old enough to attend musters, log-rollings, and horse- 
races, and was rapidly becoming a favored as well as 
favorite character. *'The first time I ever remem- 
ber of seeing Abe Lincoln," is the testimony of one 

45 



46 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

of his neighbors,* "was when I was a small boy and 
had gone with my father to attend some kind of an 
election. One of our neighbors, James Larkins, was 
there. Larkins was a great hand to brag on any- 
thing he owned. This time it was his horse. He 
stepped up before Abe, w^ho was in the crowd, and 
commenced talking to him, boasting all the while 
of his animal. 

" *I have got the best horse in the country' " he 
shouted to his young listener. " *I ran him three 
miles in exactly nine minutes, and he never fetched 
a long breath.' " 

" 'I presume,' said Abe, rather dryly, *he fetched 
a good many short ones though.' " 

With all his peaceful propensities Abe was not 
averse to a contest of strength, either for sport or in 
settlement — as in one memorable case — of griev- 
ances. Personal encounters were of frequent occur- 
rence in Gentryville in those days, and the prestige 
of having thrashed an opponent gave the victor 
marked social distinction. Green B. Taylor, with 
whom Abe worked the greater part of one winter 
on a farm, furnished me with an account of the 
noted fight between John Johnston, Abe's step- 
brother, and William Grigsby, in which stirring 
drama Abe himself played an important role before 
the curtain was rung down. Taylor's father was the 
second for Johnston, and William Whitten officiated 
in a similar capacity for Grigsby. "They had a ter- 
rible fight," relates Taylor, "and it soon became 

* John W. Lamar, MS. letter, June 29, 1866. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 4/ 

apparent that Grigsby was too much for Lincoln's 
man, Johnston. After they had fought a long time 
without interference, it having been agreed not to 
break the ring, Abe burst through, caught Grigsby, 
threw him off and some feet away. There he stood, 
proud as Lucifer, and swinging a bottle of liquor 
over his head swore he was 'the big buck of the 
lick.' 'If any one doubts it,' he shouted, 'he has 
only to come on and whet his horns.' " A general 
engagement followed this challenge, but at the end 
of hostilities the field was cleared and the wounded 
retired amid the exultant shouts of their victors. 

Much of the latter end of Abe's boyhood would 
have been lost in the midst of tradition but for tlie 
store of information and recollections I was fortu- 
nate enough to secure from an interesting old lady 
whom I met in Indiana in 1865. She was the wife of 
Josiah Crawford* — "Blue Nose," as Abe had named 
him — and possessed rare accomplishments for a 
woman reared in the backwoods of Indiana. She 
was not only impressed with Abe's early efforts, but 
expressed great admiration for his sister Sarah, 
whom she often had with her at her own hospitable 
home and whom she described as a modest, indus- 



* In one of her conversations with me Mrs. Crawford told me 
of the exhibitions with which at school they often entertained 
the few persons who attended the closing- day. Sometimes, in 
warm weather, the scholars made a platform of clean boards cov- 
ered overhead with ^een boug-hs. Generally, however, these 
exhibitions took place in the school-room. The exercises con- 
sisted of the varieties offered at this day at the average seminary 
or school — declamations and dialogues or debates. The declama- 
tions were obtained principally from a book called "The Ken- 



48 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

trious, and sensible sister of a humorous and equally 
sensible brother. From Mrs. Crawford I obtained 
the few specimens of Abe's early literary efforts 
and much of the matter that follows in this chapter. 
The introduction here of the literary feature as 
affording us a glimpse of Lincoln's boyhood days 
may to a certain extent grate harshly on over-re- 
fined ears ; but still no apology is necessary, for, as 
intimated at the outset, I intend to keep close to 
Lincoln all the way through. Some writers would 
probably omit these songs and backwoods recitals 
as savoring too strongly of the Bacchanalian nature, 
but that would be a narrow view to take of history. 
If we expect to know Lincoln thoroughly we must 
be prepared to take him as he really was. 

In 1826 Abe's sister Sarah was married to Aaron 
Grigsby, and at the wedding the Lincoln family 
sang a song composed in honor of the event by 
Abe himself. It is a tiresome doggerel and full 
of painful rhymes. I reproduce it here from the 
manuscript furnished me by Mrs. Crawford. The 
author and composer called it "Adam and Eve's 
Wedding Song." 



tucky Preceptor," which volvime Mrs. Crawford gave me as a 
souvenir of my visit. Lincoln had often used it himself, she 
said. The questions for discussion were characteristic of the 
day and age. The relative merits of the "Bee and the Ant," 
the difference in strength between "Wind and W^ater," taxed 
their knowledge of physical phenomena ; and the all-important 
question "WTiich has the most right to complain, the Indian or 
the Negro?" called out their conceptions of a great moral or 
national wrong. In the discussion of all these grave subjects 
Lincoln took a deep interest. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 49 

"When Adam was created 
He dwelt in Eden's shade. 
As Moses has recorded, 

And soon a bride was made. 

Ten thousand times ten thousand 
Of creatures swarmed around 

Before a bride was formed. 
And yet no mate was found. 

The Lord then was not willing 

That man should be alone. 
But caused a sleep upon him, 

And from him took a bone. 

And closed the flesh instead thereof, 

And then he took the same 
And of it made a woman. 

And brought her to the man. 

Then Adam he rejoiced 

To see his loving bride 
A part of his own body, 

The product of his side. 

The woman was not taken 

From Adam's feet we see. 
So he must not abuse her, 

The meaning seems to be. 

The woman was not taken 
From Adam's head, we know, 

To show she must not rule him — 
'Tis evidently so. 

The woman she was taken 

From under Adam's arm. 
So she must be protected 

From injuries and harm." 

Poor Sarah, at whose wedding this song was sung, 
never Hved to see the glory nor share in the honor 



50 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

that afterwards fell to the lot of her tall and angu- 
lar brother. Within two years after her marriage, 
she died in childbirth. Something in the conduct 
of the Grigsbys and their treatment of his sister 
gave Abe great offense, and for a long time the rela- 
tions between him and them were much strained. 
The Grigsbys were the leading family in Gentryville, 
and consequently were of no little importance in a 
social way. Abe, on the contrary, had no reserve of 
family or social influence to draw upon. He was 
only awaiting an opportunity to "even up" the 
score between them. Neither his father nor any of 
the Hankses were of any avail, and he therefore for 
the first time resorted to the use of his pen for re- 
venge. He wrote a number of pieces in which 
he took occasion to lampoon those who provoked in 
any way his especial displeasure. It was quite nat- 
ural to conceive therefore that with the gift of satire 
at command he should not have permitted the 
Grigsbys to escape. These pieces were called 
^'Chronicles," and although rude and coarse, they 
served the purpose designed by their author of 
bringing public ridicule down on the heads of his 
victims. They were written in an attempted 
scriptural vein, and on so many different subjects 
that one might consistently call them "social venti- 
lators." Their grossness must have been warmly 
appreciated by the early denizens of Gentryville, for 
the descendants of the latter up to this day have 
taken care that they should not be buried from sight 
under the dust of long-continued forgetfulness. I re- 
produce here, exactly as I obtained it, the particular 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 51 

chapter of the ''Chronicles" which reflected on the 
Grigsbys so severely, and which must serve as a 
sample of all the others.* 

Reuben and Charles Grigsby on the same day 
marriedf Betsy Ray and Matilda Hawkins respec- 
tively. The day following they with their brides 
returned to the Grigsby mansion, where the father, 
Reuben Grigsby, senior, gave them a cordial wel- 
come. Here an old-fashioned in fare, with feasting 
and dancing, and the still older fashion of putting the 
bridal party to bed, took place. When the invita- 
tions to these festivities were issued Abe was left 
out, and the slight led him to furnish an apprecia- 
tive circle in Gentryville with what he was pleased 
to term "The First Chronicles of Reuben.''^ 



t The original chapter in Lincoln's handwriting came to light 
in a singular manner after having been hidden or lost for years. 
Shortly before my trip to Indiana in 1865 a carpenter in Gen- 
tryville was rebuilding a house belonging to one of the Grigs- 
bys. While so engaged his son and assistant had climbed 
through the ceiling to the inner side of the roof to tear away 
some of the timbers, and there found, tucked away under the 
end of a rafter, a bundle of yellow and dust-covered papers. 
Carefully withdrawing them from their hidiag-place he opened 
and was slowly deciphering them, when his father, struck by 
the boy's silence, and hearing no evidence of work, enquired 
of him what he was doing. "Reading a portion of the Scrip- 
tures that hav'n't been revealed yet," was the response. He 
had found the "Chronicles of Reuben." 

* April 16, 1829. Records Spencer Co., Indiana. 

t Lincoln had shrewdly persuaded some one who was on the 
inside at the infare to slip upstairs while the feasting was at 
its height and change the beds, which Mamma Grigsby had 
carefully arranged in advance. The transposition of beds pro- 
duced a comedy of errors which gave Lincoln as much satis- 
faction and joy as the Grigsby household embarrassment and 
chagrin. 



52 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

"Now there was a man," begins this memorable 
chapter of backwoods lore, "whose name was 
Reuben, and the same was very great in substance ; 
in horses and cattle and swine, and a very great 
household. It came to pass when the sons of 
Reuben grew up that they were desirous of taking 
to themselves wives, and being too well known as to 
honor in their own country they took a journey into 
a far country and there procured for themselves 
wives. It came to pass also that when they were 
about to make the return home they sent a messen- 
ger before them to bear the tidings to their parents. 
These, enquiring of the messengers w^hat time their 
sons and wives would come, made a great feast and 
called all their kinsmen and neighbors in and made 
great preparations. When the time drew nigh they 
sent out two men to meet the grooms and their 
brides with a trumpet to welcome them and to 
accompany them. When they came near unto 
the house of Reuben the father, the messenger 
came on before them and gave a shout, and the 
whole multitude ran out with shouts of joy and 
music, playing on all kinds of instruments. Some 
were playing on harps, some on viols, and some 
blowing on rams' horns. Some also were casting 
dust and ashes towards heaven, and chief among 
them all was Josiah, blowing his bugle and mak- 
ing sound so great the neighboring hills and valleys 
echoed with the resounding acclamation. When 
they had played and their harps had sounded till 
the grooms and brides approached the gates, Reu- 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 53 

ben the father met them and welcomed them to 
his house. The wedding feast being now ready 
they were all invited to sit down to eat, placing 
the bridegrooms and their wives at each end of the 
table. Waiters were then appointed to serve and 
wait on the guests. When all had eaten and were 
full and merry they went out again and played and 
sung till night, and when they had made an end of 
feasting and rejoicing the multitude dispersed, each 
going to his own home. The family then took 
seats with their waiters to converse while prepara- 
tions were being made in an upper chamber for the 
brides and grooms to be conveyed to their beds. 
This being done the waiters took the two brides up- 
stairs, placing one in a bed at the right hand of the 
stairs and the other on the left. The waiters came 
down, and Nancy the mother then gave directions to 
the waiters of the bridegrooms, and they took them 
upstairs but placed them in the wrong beds. The 
waiters then all came dow^nstairs. But the mother, 
being fearful of a mistake, made enquiry of the 
waiters, and learning the true facts took the light and 
sprang upstairs. It came to pass she ran to one 
of the beds and exclaimed, 'O Lord, Reuben, you 
are in bed with the wrong wife.' The young men, 
both alarmed at this, sprang up out of bed and ran 
with such violence against each other they came 
near knocking each other down. The tumult gave 
evidence to those below that the mistake was 
certain. At last they all came down and had a 
long conversation about who made the mistake. 



54 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

but it could not be decided. So endeth the chap- 
ter."* 

As the reader will naturally conclude, the revela- 
tion of this additional chapter of the Scriptures 
stirred up the social lions of Gentry ville to the fight- 
ing point. Nothing but the blood of the author, 
who was endeavoring to escape public attention 
under the anonymous cloak, would satisfy the ven- 
geance of the Grigsbys and their friends. But while 
the latter were discussing the details of discovery 
and punishment, the versatile young satirist was at 
work finishing up William, the remaining member of 
the Grigsby family, who had so far escaped the sting 
of his pen. The lines of rhyme in which William's 
weaknesses are handed down to posterity, Mrs. 
Crawford had often afterwards heard Abe recite, 
but she was very reluctant from a feeling of mod- 
esty to furnish them to me. At last, through the 
influence of her son, I overcame her scruples and 
obtained the coveted verses. A glance at them will 
convince the reader that the people of a community 
who could tolerate these lines would certainly not 
be surprised or offended at anything that might be 
found in the "Chronicles." 



* The reader will readily discern that the waiters had been 
carefully drilled by Lincoln in advance for the parts they were 
to perform in this rather unique piece of backwoods comedy. 
He also improved the rare opportunity which presented itself 
of caricaturing- "Blue Nose" Crawford, who had exacted of 
him such an extreme penalty for the damage done to his 
"Weems' Life of Washington." He is easily identified as 
"Josiah blowing his bugle." The latter was also the husband 
of my informant, Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 55 

"I will tell you a joke about Joel and Mary, 
It is neither a joke nor a story, 
For Reuben and Charles have married two girls, 
But Billy has married a boy. 
The girls he had tried on every side, 
But none could he get to agree ; 
All was in vain, he went home again, 
And since that he's married to Natty. 

So Billy and Natty agreed very well. 

And mamma's well pleased with the match. 

The egg it is laid, but Natty's afraid 

The shell is so soft it never will hatch. 

But Betsy, she said, 'You cursed bald head. 

My suitor you never can be, 

Besides your ill shape proclaims you an ape. 

And that never can answer for me." 

That these burlesques and the publicity they 
attained aroused all the ire in the Grigsby family, 
and eventually made Abe the object on which 
their fury was spent is not surprising in the least. 
It has even been contended, and with some show of 
truth too, that the fight between John Johnston 
and William Grigsby was the outgrowth of these 
caricatures, and that Abe forebore measuring 
strength with Grigsby, who was considered his phys- 
ical inferior, and selected Johnston to represent him 
and fight in his stead. These crude rhymes and 
awkward imitations of scriptural lore demonstrated 
that their author, if assailed, was merciless in satire. 
In after years Lincoln, when driven to do so, used 
this weapon of ridicule with telling effect. He 
knew its power, and on one occasion, in the rejoinder 
of a debate, drove his opponent in tears from the 
platform. 



56 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Although devoid of any natural ability as a singer 
Abe nevertheless made many efforts and had great 
appreciation of certain songs. In after years he 
told me he doubted if he really knew vv^hat the har- 
mony of sound w^as. The songs in vogue then were 
principally of the sacred order. They were from 
Watts' and Dupuy's hymn-books. David Turnham 
furnished me with a list, marking as especial favor- 
ites the following : "Am I a Soldier of the Cross" ; 
"How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours" ; "There 
is a Fountain Filled with Blood," and, "Alas, and 
did my Saviour Bleed?" One song pleased Abe 
not a little. "I used to sing it for old Thomas 
Lincoln," relates Turnham, "at Abe's request. The 
old gentleman liked it and made me sing it often. 
I can only remember one couplet : 

" 'There was a Romish lady 

She was brought up in Popery.' " 

Dennis Hanks insists that Abe used to try his 
hand and voice at "Poor old Ned," but never with 
any degree of success. "Rich, racy verses" were 
sung by the big boys in the country villages of that 
day with as keen a relish as they are to-day. There 
is no reason and less evidence for the belief that 
Abe did not partake of this forbidden fruit along 
with other boys of the same age and condition in 
life. Among what Dennis called "field songs" are 
a few lines from this one: 



"The turbaned Turk that scorns the world 
And struts about with his whiskers curled, 
For no other man but himself to see." 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 57 

Of another ballad we have this couplet: 

"Hail Columbia, happy land, 
If you aint drunk I will be damned." 

We can imagine the merry Dennis, hilarious with 
the exhilaration of deep potations at the village 
grocery, singing this "field song" as he and Abe 
wended their way homeward. A stanza from a 
campaign song which Abe was in the habit of ren- 
dering, according to Mrs. Crawford, attests his ear- 
liest political predilections : 

"Let auld acquaintance be forgot 
And never brought to mind. 
May Jackson be our president. 
And Adams left behind." 

A mournful and distressing ballad, ''Jo^^n Ander- 
son's Lamentation," as rendered by Abe, was writ- 
ten out for me by Mrs. Crawford, but the first lines, 

"Oh, sinners, poor sinners, take warning by me. 
The fruits of transgression behold now and see," 

will suffice to indicate how mournful the rest of it 
was. 

The centre of wit and wisdom in the village of 
Genti^ville was at the store. This place was in 
charge of one Jones, who soon after embarking in 
business seemed to take quite a fancy to Abe. He 
took the only newspaper — sent from Louisville — 
and at his place of business gathered Abe, Dennis 
Hanks, Baldwin, the blacksmith, and other kindred 
spirits to discuss such topics as are the exclusive 
property of the store lounger. Abe's original and 



58 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

ridiculous stories not only amused the crowd, but 
the display of his unique faculties made him many 
friends. One who saw him at this time says : 

"Lincoln w^ould frequently make political 
speeches to the boys ; he was always calm, logical,, 
and clear. His jokes and stories were so odd, orig- 
inal, and witty all the people in town would gather 
around him. He would keep them till midnight. 
Abe was a good talker, a good reasoner, and a kind 
of newsboy." He attended all the trials before the 
"squire," as that important functionary was called, 
and frequently wandered off to Boonville, a town on 
thg river, distant fifteen miles, and the county seat 
of Warrick County, to hear and see how the courts 
were conducted there. On one occasion, at the 
latter place, he remained during the trial of a mur- 
derer and attentively absorbed the proceedings. A 
lawyer named Breckenridge represented the defense, 
and his speech so pleased and thrilled his young 
listener that the latter could not refrain from ap- 
proaching the eloquent advocate at the close of his 
address and congratulating him on his signal suc- 
cess. How Breckenridge accepted the felicitations 
of the awkward, hapless youth we shall probably 
never know. The story is told that during Lin- 
coln's term as President, he was favored one day at 
the White House with a visit by this same Brecken- 
ridge, then a resident of Texas, who had called to 
pay his respects. In a conversation about early 
days in Indiana, the President, recalling Brecken- 
ridge's argument in the murder trial, remarked, "If 
I could, as I then thought, have made as good a 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 59 

Speech as that, my soul would have been satisfied; 
for it was up to that time the best speech I had 
ever heard. 

No feature of his backwoods life pleased Abe so 
well as going to mill. It released him from a day's 
work in the woods, besides affording him a much 
desired opportunity to watch the movement of the 
mill's primitive and cumbersome machiner}^ It 
was on many of these trips that David Turnham 
accompanied him. In later years ]\Ir. Lincoln 
related the following reminiscence of his experience 
as a miller in Indiana : One day, taking a bag of 
corn, he mounted the old flea-bitten gray mare and 
rode leisurely to Gordon's mill. Arriving somewhat 
late, his turn did not come till almost sundown. In 
obedience to the custom requiring each man to 
furnish his own power he hitched the old mare to 
the arm, and as the animal moved round, the 
machinery responded with equal speed. Abe was 
mounted on the arm, and at frequent intervals made 
use of his whip to urge the animal on to better 
speed. With a careless "Get up, you old hussy," he 
applied the lash at each revolution of the arm. In 
the midst of the exclamation, or just as half of it 
had escaped through his teeth, the old jade, resent- 
ing the continued use of the goad, elevated her 
shoeless hoof and striking the young engineer in 
the forehead, sent him sprawling to the earth. 
Miller Gordon hurried in, picked up the bleeding, 
senseless boy, whom he took for dead, and at once 
sent for his father. Old Thomas Lincoln came — 
came as soon as embodied listlessness could move — 



50 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

loaded the lifeless boy in a wagon and drove 
home. Abe lay unconscious all night, but towards 
break of day the attendants noticed signs of return- 
ing consciousness. The blood beginning to flow 
normally, his tongue struggled to loosen itself, his 
frame jerked for an instant, and he awoke, blurting 
out the words **you old hussy," or the latter half of 
the sentence interrupted by the mare's heel at the 

4Tlill. 

Mr. Lincoln- considered this one of the remarka- 
ble incidents of his life. He often referred to it, 
and we had many discussions in our law office over 
the psychogical phenomena involved in the opera- 
tion. Without expressing my own views I may say 
that his idea was that the latter half of the expres- 
sion, ''Get up, you old hussy," was cut off by a sus- 
pension of the normal flow of his mental energy, 
and that as soon as life's forces returned he uncon- 
sciously ended the sentence ; or, as he in a plainer 
figure put it : "Just before I struck the old mare 
my will through the mind had set the muscles of 
my tongue to utter the expression, and when her 
heels came in contact with my head the whole thing 
stopped half-cocked, as it were, and was only fired 
oiT when mental energy or force returned." 
^y^ By the time he had reached his seventeenth year 

he had attained the physical proportions of a full- 
grown man. He was employed to assist James 
Taylor in the management of a ferry-boat across 
the Ohio river near the mouth of Anderson's creek, 
but was not allowed a man's wages for the work. 
He received thirty-seven cents a day for what he 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 61 

afterwards told me was the roughest work a young 
man could be made to do. In the midst of what- 
ever work he was engaged on he still found time 
to utilize his pen. He prepared a composition on 
the American Government, calling attention to 
the necessity of preserving the Constitution and 
perpetuating the Union, which with characteristic 
modesty he turned over to his friend and patron, 
William Woods, for safe-keeping and perusal. 
Through the instrumentality of Woods it attracted 
the attention of many persons, among them one 
Pitcher,* a lawyer at Rockport, who with faintly 
concealed enthusiasm declared "the world couldn't 
s. beat it." An article on Temperance was shown 
under similar circumstance to Aaron Farmer, a 
Baptist preacher of local renown, and by him fur- 
nished to an Ohio newspaper for publication. The 
thing, however, which gave him such prominence — 
a prominence too which could have been attained in 
no other way — was his remarkable physical strength, 
for he was becoming not only one of the longest. 



* This gentleman, Judge John Pitchei% ninety-three yeai'S old, 
is still living in Mount Vernon, Indiana. He says that young 
Lincoln often called at his office and borrowed books to read at 
home during leisure hours. On one occasion he expressed a de- 
sire to study law with Pitcher, but explained that his parents 
were so poor that he could not be spared from the farm on which 
they lived. "He related to me in my office one day," says Pit- 
cher, "an account of his payment to Crawford of the damage 
done to the latter's book — Weems' 'Life of Washington.' Lin- 
coln said, "You see, I am tall and long-armed, and I went to 
work in earnest. At the end of the two days there was not a 
corn-blade left on a stalk in the field. I wanted to pay full dam- 
age for all the wetting the book got, and I made a clean sweep." 



62 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

but one of the strongest men around Gentry ville. 
He enjoyed the brief distinction his exhibitions of 
strength gave him more than the admiration of his 
friends for his Hterary or forensic efforts. Some 
of the feats attributed to him almost surpass beHef. 
One witness declares he was equal to three men, 
having on a certain occasion carried a load of six 
hundred pounds. At another time he walked away 
with a pair of logs which three robust men were 
skeptical of their ability to carry. ''He could 
strike with a maul a heavier blow — could sink an 
axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw," is 
the testimony of another witness. 
^-^ After he had passed his nineteenth year and was 
nearing his majority he began to chafe and grow 
restless under the restraints of home rule. Seeing 
no prospect of betterment in his condition, so long 
as his fortune was interwoven with that of his father, 

r 

he at last endeavored to strike out into the broad 
world for himself. Having great faith in the judg- 
ment and influence of his fast friend Wood, he 
solicited from him a recommendation to the officers 
of some one of the boats plying up and down the 
river, hoping thereby to obtain employment more 
congenial than the dull, fatiguing work of the farm. 
To this project the judicious Wood was much 
opposed, and therefore suggested to the would-be 
boatman the moral duty that rested on him to 
remain with his father till the law released him from 
that obligation. With deep regret he retraced his 
steps to the paternal mansion, seriously determined 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 63 

not to evade the claim from which in a few weary 
months he would be finally released. Meanwhile 
occurred his first opportunity to see the world. In 
March, 1828, James Gentry, for whom he had been 
at work, had fitted out a boat with a stock of grain 
and meat for a trading expedition to New Orleans, 
and placed his son Allen in charge of the cargo for 
the voyage. Abe's desire to make a river trip was 
at last satisfied, and he accompanied the proprietor's 
son, serving as **bow hand." His pay was eight 
dollars a month and board. In due course of time 
the navigators returned from their expedition with 
the evidence of profitable results to gladden the 
heart of the owner. The only occurrence of interest 
they could relate of the voyage was the encounter 
with a party of marauding negroes at the plantation 
of Madame Duchesne, a few miles below Baton 
Rouge. Abe and Gentry, having tied up for the 
night, were fast asleep on their boat when aroused 
by the arrival of a crowd of negroes bent on 
plunder. They set to work with clubs, and not 
only drove off the intruders, but pursued them 
inland, then hastily returning to their quarters 
they cut loose their craft and floated down-stream 
till daylight. 

Before passing on further it may not be amiss to 
glance for a moment at the social side of life as it 
existed in Gentryville in Abe's day. *'We thought 
nothing," said an old lady whom I interviewed 
when in Indiana, "of going eight or ten miles to 
church. The ladies did not stop for the want of a 
shawl, cloak, or riding-dress in winter time, but 



54 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

would put on their husbands' old overcoats and 
wrap up their little ones and take one or two of 
them on their beasts. Their husbands would walk, 
and thus they would go to church, frequently re- 
maining till the second day before they returned 
home." 

The old men starting from the fields and out of 
the woods would carry their guns on their shoulders 
and go also. They dressed in deer-skin pants, moc- 
casins, and coarse hunting shirts — the latter usually 
fastened with a rope or leather strap. Arriving at 
the house where services were to be held they 
would recite to each other thrilling stories of their 
hunting exploits, and smoke their pipes with the 
old ladies. They were treated, and treated each 
other, with the utmost kindness. A bottle of liquor, 
a pitcher of water, sugar, and glasses were set out 
for them; also a basket of apples or turnips, with, 
now and then, a pie or cakes. Thus they regaled 
themselves till the preacher found himself in a 
condition to begin. The latter, having also partaken 
freely of the refreshments provided, would ''take his 
stand, draw his coat, open his shirt collar, read his 
text, and preach and pound till the sweat, produced 
alike by his exertions and the exhilarating effects 
of the toddy, rolled from his face in great drops. 
Shaking hands and singing ended the service." 

The houses were scattered far apart, . but the 
people travelled great distances to participate in 
the frolic and coarse fun of a log-rolling and some- 
times a wedding. Unless in mid-winter the young 
ladies carried their shoes in their hands, and only 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 65 

put them on when the scene of the festivities was 
reached. The ladies of maturer years drank whiskey 
toddy, while the men took the whiskey straight. 
They all danced merrily, many of them barefooted, 
to the tune of a cracked fiddle the night through. 
We can imagine the gleeful and more hilarious 
swaggering home at daybreak to the tune of Den- 
nis Hanks' festive lines : 



'Hail Columbia, happy land, 
If you ain't drunk I will be damned." 



Although gay, prosperous, and light-hearted, 
these people were brimming over with superstition. 
It was at once their food and drink. They believed 
in the baneful influence of witches, pinned their 
faith to the curative power of wizards in dealing 
with sick animals, and shot the image of a w^itch 
with a sliver ball to break the spell she was supposed 
to have over human beings. They followed with 
religious minuteness the directions of the water- 
wizard, wath his magic divining rod, and the faith 
doctor who w^rought miraculous cures by strange 
sounds and signals to some mysterious agency. 
The flight of a bird in at the window, the breath of 
a horse on a child's head, the crossing by a dog of a 
hunter's path, all betokened evil luck in store for 
some one. The moon exercised greater influence 
on the actions of the people and the growth of 
vegetation than the sun and all the planetary sys- 
tem combined. Fence rails could only be cut in the 
light of the moon, and potatoes planted in the dark 
of the moon. Trees and plants which bore their 



56 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

fruit above ground could be planted when the moon 
shone full. Soap could only be made in the light 
of the moon, and it must only be stirred in one way 
and by one person. They had the horror of Friday 
which with many exists to this day. Nothing was 
to be begun on that unlucky day, for if the rule 
were violated an endless train of disasters was sure 
to follow. 

Surrounded by people who believed in these 
things, Lincoln grew to manhood. With them he 
walked, talked, and labored, and from them he also 
absorbed whatever of superstition showed itself in 
him thereafter. / His early Baptist training made 
him a fatalist up to the day of his death, and, 
listening in boyish wonder to the legends of some 
toothless old dame led him to believe in the sig- 
nificance of dreams and visions. / His surroundings 
helped to create that unique character which in the 
eyes of a great portion of the American people was 
only less curious and amusing than it was august 
and noble. 

The winter of 1829 was marked by another visi- 
tation of that dreaded disease, ''the milk-sick." It 
was making the usual ravages among the cattle. 
Human victims were falling before it every day, 
and it caused the usual stampede in southern Indi- 
ana. Dennis Hanks, discouraged by the prospect 
and grieving over the loss of his stock, proposed a 
move further westward. Returning emigrants had 
brought encouraging news of the newly developed 
state of Illinois. Vast stretches of rich alluvial 
lands were to be had there on the easiest of terms. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 67 

Besides this, Indiana no longer afforded any 
inducements to the poor man. The proposition 
of Dennis met with the general assent of the Lin- 
coln family, and especially suited the roving and 
migratory spirit of Thomas Lincoln. He had been 
induced to leave Kentucky for the hills of Indiana 
by the same rosy and alluring reports. He had 
moved four times since his marriage and in point 
of worldly goods was not better off than when he 
started in life. His land groaned under the weight 
of a long neglected incumbrance and, like many of 
his neighbors, he was ready for another change. 
Having disposed of his land to James Gentry, and 
his grain and stock to young David Turnham, he 
loaded his household eft'ects into a wagon drawn by 
two yoke of oxen, and in March, 1830, started for 
Illinois. The two daughters of Mrs. Lincoln had 
meanwhile married Dennis Hanks and Levi Hall, 
and with these additions the party numbered thir- 
teen in all. Abe had just passed his twenty-first 
birthday. 

The journey was a long and tedious one; the 
streams were swollen and the roads were muddy 
almost to the point of impassability. The rude, 
heavy wagon, with its primitive wheels, creaked and 
groaned as it crawled through the woods and now 
and then stalled in the mud. Many were the delays, 
but none ever disturbed the equanimity of its pas- 
sengers. They were cheerful in the face of all 
adversity, hopeful, and some of them determined ; 
but none of them more so than the tall, ungainly 
youth in buckskin breeches and coon-skin cap who 



68 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

wielded the gad and urged the patient oxen for- 
ward. As these humble emigrants entered the new- 
State little did the curious people in the towns 
through which they passed dream that the obscure 
and penniless driver who yelled his commands 
to the oxen would yet become Chief Magistrate 
of the greatest nation of modern times.* 



* Mr. Lincoln once described this journey to me. He said the 
ground had not yet yielded up the frosts of winter ; that during 
the day the roads would thaw out on the surface and at night 
freeze over again, thus making travelling, especially with oxen, 
painfully slow and tiresome. There were, of course, no bridges, 
and the party were consequently driven to ford the streams, 
unless by a circuitous route they could avoid them. In the 
early part of the day the latter were also frozen slightly, and 
the oxen would break through a square yard of thin ice at every 
step. Among other things which the party brought with them 
was a pet dog, which trotted along after the wagon. One day 
the little fellow fell behind and failed to catch up till after they 
had crossed the stream. Missing him they looked back, and 
there, on the opposite bank, he stood, whining and jumping about 
in great distress. The water was running over the broken 
edges of the ice, and the poor animal was afraid to cross. It 
would not pay to turn the oxen and wagon back and ford the 
stream again in order to recover a dog, and so the majority, 
in their anxiety to move forward, decided to go on without him. 
"But I could not endure the idea of abandoning even a dog," 
related Lincoln. "Pulling off shoes and socks I waded across 
the stream and triumphantly returned with the shivering animal 
under my arm. His frantic leaps of joy and other evidences of 
a dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all the exposure I had 
undergone." 



CHAPTER IV. 

After a fortnight of rough and fatiguing travel 
the colony of Indiana emigrants reached a point in 
Illinois five miles north-west of the town of Deca- 
tur in Macon county. John Hanks, son of that 
Joseph Hanks in whose shop at Elizabethtown 
Thomas Lincoln had learned what he knew of the 
carpenter's art, met and sheltered them until they 
were safely housed on a piece of land which he had 
selected for them five miles further westward. He 
had preceded them over a year, and had in the 
meantime hewed out a few timbers to be used in 
the construction of their cabin. The place he had 
selected was on a bluff overlooking the Sangamon 
river, — for these early settlers must always be in 
sight of a running stream, — well supplied with tim- 
ber. It was a charming and picturesque site, and 
all hands set resolutely to work to prepare the new 
abode. One felled the trees; one hewed the tim- 
bers for the cabin ; while another cleared the ground 
of its accumulated growth of underbrush. All was 
bustle and activity. Even old Thomas Lincoln, 
infused with the spirit of the hour, was spurred to 
unwonted exertion. What part of the work fell 
to his lot our only chronicler, John Hanks, fails to 
note; but it is conjectured from the old gentleman's 

69 



70 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

experience in the art of building that his services 
corresponded to those of the more modern super- 
vising architect. With the aid of the oxen and a 
plow John and Abe broke up fifteen acres of sod, 
and "Abe and myself," observes Hanks in a mat- 
ter-of-fact way, "split rails enough to fence the 
place in." As they swung their axes, or with 
wedge and maul split out the rails, how strange to 
them the thought would have seemed that those 
self-same rails were destined to make one of them 
immortal. If such a vision flashed before the mind 
of either he made no sign of it, but each kept stead- 
ily on in his simple, unromantic task. 

Abe had now attained his majoirty and began to 
throw from his shoulders the vexations of parental 
restraint. He had done his duty to his father, and 
felt able to begin life on his own account. As he 
steps out into the broad and inviting world we take 
him up for consideration as a man. At the same 
time we dispense with further notice of his father, 
Thomas Lincoln. In the son are we alone inter- 
ested. The remaining years of his life marked no 
change in the old gentleman's nature. He still lis- 
tened to the glowing descriptions of prosperity in 
the adjoining counties, and before his death moved 
three times in search of better times and a healthy 
location. In 1851 we find him living on forty acres 
of land on Goose Nest prairie, in Coles county, Illi- 
nois. The land bore the usual incumbrance — a 
mortgage for two hundred dollars, which his son 
afterwards paid. On the 17th of January, after 
suffering for many weeks from a disorder of the kid- 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 7\ 

neys, he passed away at the ripe old age — as his son 
tells us — of ''seventy-three years and eleven days." 

For a long time after beginning life on his own 
account Abe remained in sight of the parental 
abode. He worked at odd jobs in the neighbor- 
hood, or wherever the demand for his services called 
him. As late as 1831 he was still in the same parts, 
and John Hanks is authority for the statement that 
he "made three thousand rails for Major Warnick" 
walking daily three miles to his work. During the 
intervals of leisure he read the few books obtain- 
able, and continued the practice of extemporaneous 
speaking to the usual audience of undemonstrative 
stumps and voiceless trees. His first attempt at 
public speaking after landing in Illinois is thus 
described to me by John Hanks, whose language I 
incorporate: "After Abe got to Decatur, or rather 
to Macon county, a man by the name of Posey 
came into our neighborhood and made a speech. 
It was a bad one, and I said Abe could beat it. I 
turned down a box and Abe made his speech. The 
other man was a candidate — Abe wasn't. Abe beat 
him to death, his subject being the navigation of 
the Sangamon river. The man, after Abe's speech 
was through, took him aside and asked him where 
he had learned so much and how he could do so 
well. Abe replied, stating his manner and method 
of reading, and what he had read. The man encour- 
aged him to persevere." 

For the first time we are now favored with the 
appearance on the scene of a very important per- 
sonag:e — one destined to exert no little influence 



72 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

in shaping Lincoln's fortunes. It is Denton Offut, a 
brisk and venturesome business man, whose opera- 
tions extended up and down the Sangamon river 
for many miles. Having heard glowing reports of 
John Hanks' successful experience as a boatman in 
Kentucky he had come down the river to engage the 
latter's services to take a boat-load of stock and 
provisions to New Orleans. "He wanted me to go 
badly," observes Hanks, **but I waited awhile be- 
fore answering. I hunted up Abe, and I introduced 
him and John Johnson, his step-brother, to Offut. 
After some talk we at last made an engagement 
with Offut at fifty cents a day and sixty dollars to 
make the trip to New Orleans. Abe and I came 
down the Sangamon river in a canoe in March, 1831 ; 
landed at what is now called Jamestown, five 
miles east of Springfield, then known as Judy's 
Ferry." Here Johnston joined them, and, leaving 
their canoe in charge of one Uriah Mann, they 
walked to Springfield, where after some inquiry 
they found the genial and enterprising Offut regal- 
ing himself with the good cheer dispensed at 'The 
Buckhorn" inn. This hostelry, kept by Andrew 
ElHot, was the leading place of its kind in the then 
unpretentious village of Springfield. The figure of 
a buck's head painted on a sign swinging in front of 
the house gave rise to its name. Offut had agreed 
with Hanks to have a boat ready for him and his 
two companions at the mouth of Spring crefek on 
their arrival, but too many deep potations with the 
new-comers who daily thronged about the "Buck- 
horn" had interfered with the execution of his 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 73 

plans, and the boat still remained in the womb of 
the future. Ofifut met the three expectant naviga- 
tors on their arrival, and deep were his regrets over 
his failure to provide the boat. The interview 
resulted in the trio engaging to make the boat 
themselves. From what was known as "Congress 
land" they obtained an abundance of timber, and by 
the aid of the machinery at Kirkpatrick's mill they 
soon had the requisite material for their vessel. 
While the work of construction was going on a 
shanty was built in which they were lodged. Lin- 
coln was elected cook, a distinction he never under- 
estimated for a moment. Within four weeks the 
boat was ready to launch. Offut was sent for, and 
was present when she slid into the water. It was 
the occasion of much political chat and buncombe, 
in which the Whig party and Jackson alike were, 
strangely enough, lauded to the skies. It is difficult 
to account for the unanimous approval of such 
strikingly antagonistic ideas, unless it be admitted 
that Offut must have brought with him some sub- 
stantial reminder of the hospitality on draught at 
the "Buckhorn" mn. Many disputes arose, we are 
told, in which Lincoln took part and found a good 
field for practice and debate. 

A travelling juggler halted long enough in San- 
gamontown, where the boat was launched, to give 
an exhibition of his art and dexterity in the loft of 
Jacob Carman's house. In Lincoln's low-crowned, 
broad-brimmed hat the magician cooked eggs. As 
explanatory of the delay in passing up his hat Lin- 



74 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

coin drolly observed, "It was out of respect for the 
eggs, not care for my hat." 

Having loaded the vessel with pork in barrels, 
corn, and hogs, these sturdy boatmen swung out 
into the stream. On April 19 they reached the town 
of New Salem, a place destined to be an important 
spot in the career of Lincoln. There they met 
with their first serious delay. The boat stranded 
on Rutledge's mill-dam and hung helplessly over it 
a day and a night. "We unloaded the boat," nar- 
rated one of the crew to explain how they obtained 
relief from their embarassing situation ; "that is, we 
transferred the goods from our boat to a borrowed 
one. We then rolled the barrels forward ; Lincoln 
bored a hole in the end [projecting] over the dam; 
the water which had leaked in ran out and we slid 
over." Offut was profoundly impressed with this 
exhibition of Lincoln's ingenuity. In his enthusi- 
asm he declared to the crowd who covered the hill 
and who had been watching Lincoln's operation 
that he would build a steamboat to plow up and 
down the Sangamon, and that Lincoln should be her 
Captain. She would have rollers for shoals and 
dams, runners for ice, and with Lincoln in charge, 
"By thunder, she'd have to go!" 

After release from their embarrassing, not to say 
perilous, position the boat and her crew floated away 
from New Salem and passed on to a point known 
as Blue Banks, where as the historian of the voyage 
says: "We had to load some hogs bought of Squire 
Godbey. We tried to drive them aboard, but could 
not. They would run back past us. Lincoln then 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 75 

suggested that we sew their eyes shut. Thinking to 
try it, we caught them, Abe holding their heads and 
I their tails while Offut sewed up their eyes. Still 
they wouldn't drive. At last, becoming tired, we 
carried them to the boat. Abe received them and 
cut open their eyes, Johnston and I handing them 
to him." After thus disposing of the hog problem 
they again swung loose and floated down-stream. 
From the Sangamon they passed to the Illinois. 
At Beardstown their unique craft, with its "sails 
made of planks and cloth," excited the amusement 
and laughter of those who saw them from the 
shore. Once on the bosom of the broad Mis- 
sissippi they glided past Alton, St. Louis, and 
Cairo in rapid succession, tied up for a day at 
Memphis, and made brief stops at Vicksburg and 
Natchez. Early in May they reached New Orleans, 
where they lingered a month, disposing of their 
cargo and viewing the sights which the Crescent 
City aiTorded. 

-^ In New Orleans, for the first time Lincoln be- 
held the true horrors of human slavery. He 
saw "negroes in chains — whipped and scourged." 
Against this inhumanity his sense of right and 
justice rebelled, and his mind and conscience were 
awakened to a realization of what he had often 
heard and read. No doubt, as one of his compan- 
ions has said, "Slavery ran the iron into him then 
and there." One morning in their rambles over 
the city the trio passed a slave auction. A vigor- 
ous and comely mulatto girl was being sold. She 
underwent a thorough examination at the hands of 



76 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

the bidders ; they pinched her flesh and made her 
trot up and down the room hke a horse, to show- 
how she moved, and in order, as the auctioneer said, 
that "bidders might satisfy themselves" whether 
the article they were offering to buy was sound or 
not. The whole thing was so revolting that Lincoln 
moved away from the scene with a deep feeling of 
"unconquerable hate." Bidding his companions 
follow him he said, "By God, boys, let's get away 
from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing 
[meaning slavery], I'll hit it hard." This incident 
was furnished me in 1865, by John Hanks. I have 
;also heard Mr. Lincoln refer to it himself. 

In June the entire party, including Offut, boarded 
a steamboat going up the river. At St. Louis they 
disembarked, Oft'ut remaining behind while Lin- 
coln, Hanks, and Johnston started across Illinois 
on foot. At Edwardsville they separated, Hanks 
going to Springfield, while Lincoln and his step- 
brother followed the road to Coles county, to which 
point old Thomas Lincoln had meanwhile removed. 
Here Abe did not tarry long, probably not over a 
month, but long enough to dispose most eft'ectually 
of one Daniel Needham, a famous wrestler who had 
challenged the returned boatman to a test of 
strength. The contest took place at a locality 
known as "Wabash Point." Abe threw his an- 
tagonist twice with comparative ease, and thereby 
demonstrated such marked strength and agility as 
to render him forever popular with the boys of that 
neighborhood. 

In August the waters of the Sangamon river 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 77 

washed Lincoln in to New Salem. This once 
sprightly and thriving village is no longer in exist- 
ence. Not a building, scarcely a stone, is left to 
mark the place where it once stood. To reach it 
now the traveller must ascend a bluff a hundred 
feet above the general level of the surrounding 
country. The brow of the ridge, two hundred and 
fifty feet broad where it overlooks the river, widens 
gradually as it extends westwardly to the forest 
and ultimately to broad pastures. Skirting the base 
of the bluff is the Sangamon river, which, coming 
around a sudden bend from the south-east, strikes 
the rocky hill and is turned abruptly north. Here 
is an old mill, driven by water-power, and reaching 
across the river is the mill-dam on which Offut's 
vessel hung stranded in April, 1831. As the river 
rolled her turbid waters over the dam, plunging 
them into the whirl and eddy beneath, the roar 
of waters, like low, continuous, distant thunder, 
could be distinctly heard through the village day 
and night. 

The country in almost every direction is diversi- 
fied by alternate stretches of hills and level lands, 
with streams between each struggling to reach the 
river. The hills are bearded with timber — oak, 
hickory, walnut, ash, and elm. Below them are 
stretches of rich alluvial bottom land, and the eye 
ranges over a vast expanse of foliage, the monotony 
of which is relieved by the alternating swells and 
depressions of the landscape. Between peak and 
peak, through its bed of limestone, sand, and clay, 
sometimes kissing the feet of one bluff and then 



78 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

hugging the other, rolls the Sangamon river. The 
village of New Salem, which once stood on the 
ridge, was laid out in 1828; it became a trading 
place, and in 1836 contained twenty houses and a 
hundred inhabitants. In the days of land offices and 
stage-coaches it was a sprightly village with a busy 
market. Its people were progressive and industri- 
ous. Propitious winds filled the sails of its com- 
merce, prosperity smiled graciously on its every en- 
terprise, and the outside world encouraged its social 
pretensions. It had its day of glory, but, singu- 
larly enough, contemporaneous with the departure of 
Lincoln from its midst it went into a rapid decline. 
A few crumbling stones here and there are all that 
attest its former existence. "How it vanished," 
observes one writer, ''like a mist in the morning, 
to what distant places its inhabitants dispersed, 
and what became of the abodes they left behind, 
shall be questions for the local historian." 

Lincoln's return to New Salem in August, 1831, 
was, within a few days, contemporaneous with the 
reappearance of Offut, who made the gratifying 
announcement that he had purchased a stock of 
goods which were to follow him from Beardstown. 
He had again retained the services of Lincoln to 
assist him when his merchandise should come to 
hand. The tall stranger — destined to be a stranger 
in New Salem no longer — pending the arrival of his 
employer's goods, lounged about the village with 
nothing to do. Leisure never sat heavily on him. 
To him there was nothing uncongenial in it, and he 
might very properly have been dubbed at the time 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 79 

a ''loafer." He assured those with whom he came 
in contact that he w^as a piece of floating driftwood; 
that after the winter of deep snow, he had come 
down the river with the freshet; borne along by the 
swelling waters, and aimlessly floating about, he had 
accidentally lodged at New Salem. Looking back 
over his history we are forced to conclude that 
Providence or chance, or whatever power is re- 
sponsible for it, could not have assigned him to a 
more favorable refuge. 

His introduction to the citizens of New Salem, as 
Mentor Graham* the school-teacher tells us, was in 
the capacity of clerk of an election board. Graham 
furnishes ample testimony of the facility, fairness, 
and honesty which characterized the new clerk's 
work, and both teacher and clerk were soon bound 
together by the warmest of ties. During the day, 
when votes were coming in slowly, Lincoln began 
to entertain the crowd at the polls with a few 
attempts at story-telling. My cousin, J. R. Herndon, 
was present and enjoyed this feature of the election 
with the keenest relish. He never forgot some of 
Lincoln's yarns, and was fond of repeating them in 
after years. The recital of a few stories by Lincoln 
easily established him in the good graces of all 
New Salem. Perhaps he did not know it at the time, 
but he had used the weapon nearest at hand and 
had won.f 

* Nicolay and Hay in the Century make the mistake of spell- 
ing this man's name "Menton" Graham. In all the letters and 
papers from him he signs himself "Mentor" in every case. — 
J. W. W. 

t "In the afternoon, as things were dragging a little, Lincoln 



80 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

A few days after the election Lincoln found em- 
ployment with one Dr. Nelson, who after the style 
of dignitaries of later days started with his family 
and effects in his "private" conveyance — which in 
this instance was a flat-boat — for Texas. Lincoln 
was hired to pilot the vessel through to the Illinois 
river. Arriving at Beardstown the pilot was dis- 
charged, and returned on foot across the sand and 



the new man, began to spin out a stock of Indiana yarns. One 
that amused me more than any other he called the lizard story. 
'The meeting-house,' he said, *was in the woods and quite a dis- 
tance from any other house. It was only used once a month. 
The preacher — an old line Baptist — was dressed in coarse linen 
pantaloons, and shirt of the same material. The pants, manu- 
factured after the old fashion, with baggy legs and a flap in 
front, were made to attach to his frame without the aid of sus- 
penders. A single button held his shirt in position, and that was 
at the collar. He rose up in the pulpit and with a loud voice an- 
nounced his text thus : 'I am the Christ, whom I shall repre- 
sent to-day.' About this time a little blue lizard ran up under- 
neath his roomy pantaloons. The old preacher, not wishing to 
interrupt the steady flow of his sermon, slapped away on his 
legs, expecting to arrest the intruder ; but his efforts were un- 
availing, and the little fellow kept on ascending higher and 
higher. Continuing the sermon, the preacher slyly loosened the 
central button which graced the wai^-band of his pantaloons 
and with a kick off came that easy-fitting garment. But mean- 
while Mr. Lizard had passed the equatorial line of waist-band 
and was calmly exploring that part of the preacher's anatomy 
which lay underneath the back of his shirt. Things were now 
growing interesting, but the sermon was still grinding on. The 
next movement on the preacher's part was for the collar button, 
and with one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt. 
The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed ; at length one 
old lady in the rear of the room rose up and glancing at the ex- 
cited object in the pulpit, shouted at the top of her voice: 'If 
you represent Christ then I'm done with the Bible.' " — J. R. 
Herndon, MS., July 2, 1865. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 81 

hills to New Salem. In the meantime Ottut's long 
expected goods had arrived, and Lincoln was placed 
in charge. Offut relied in no slight degree on the 
business capacity of his clerk. In his effusive way- 
he praised him beyond reason. He boasted of his 
skill as a business man and his wonderful intellect- 
ual acquirements. As for physical strength and 
fearlessness of danger, he challenged New Salem 
and the entire world to produce his equal. In 
keeping with his widely known spirit of enterprise 
Offut rented the Rutledge and Cameron mill, which 
stood at the foot of the hill, and thus added another 
iron to keep company with the half-dozen already 
in the fire. As a further test of his business ability 
Lincoln was placed in charge of this also. William 
G. Greene was hired to assist him, and between the 
two a life-long friendship sprang up. They slept in 
the store, and so strong was the intimacy between 
them that "when one turned over the other had to 
do likewise." At the head of these varied enter- 
prises was Oft'ut, the most progressive man by all 
odds in the village. He was certainly an odd 
character, if we accept the judgment of his cotem- 
poraries. By some he is given the character of 
a clear-headed, brisk man of affairs. By others 
he is variously described as "wild, noisy, and 
reckless," or "windy, rattle-brained, unsteady, and 
improvident." Despite the unenviable traits as- 
cribed to him he was good at heart and a generous 
friend of Lincoln. His boast that the latter could 
outrun, whip, or throw down any man in Sangamon 
county was soon tested, as we shall presently see. 



S2 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

for, as another has truthfully expressed it, "honors 
such as Ofifut accorded to Abe were to be won be- 
fore they were worn at New Salem." In the neigh- 
borhood of the village, or rather a few miles to the 
south-west, lay a strip of timber called Clary's Grove. 
The boys who lived there were a terror to the 
entire region — seemingly a necessary product of 
frontier civilization. They were friendly and good- 
natured ; they could trench a pond, dig a bog, build 
a house; they could pray and fight, make a village 
or create a state. They would do almost anything 
for sport or fun, love or necessity. Though rude 
and rough, though life's forces ran over the edge 
of the bowl, foaming and sparkling in pure dev- 
iltry for deviltry's sake, yet place before them 
a poor man who needed their aid, a lame or sick 
man, a defenceless woman, a widow, or an orphaned 
child, they melted into sympathy and charity at 
once. They gave all they had, and willingly toiled 
or played cards for more. Though there never was 
under the sun a more generous parcel of rowdies, 
a stranger's introduction was likely to be the most 
unpleasant part of his acquaintance with them. 
They conceded leadership to one Jack Armstrong, 
a hardy, strong, and well-developed specimen of 
physical manhood, and under him they were in the 
habit of "cleaning out" New Salem whenever his 
order went forth to do so. Offut and "Bill" Clary 
— the latter skeptical of Lincoln's strength and 
agility — ended a heated discussion in the store one 
day over the new clerk's ability to meet the tactics 
of Clary's Grove, by a bet of ten dollars that Jack 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 83 

Armstrong was, in the language of the day, "a 
better man than Lincoln." The new clerk strongly 
opposed this sort of an introduction, but after 
much entreaty from Offut, at last consented to make 
his bow to the social lions of the town in this un- 
usual way. He was now six feet four inches high, 
and weighed, as his friend and confidant, William 
Greene, tells us with impressive precision, "two hun- 
dred and fourteen pounds.'' The contest was to 
be a friendly one and fairly conducted. All New 
Salem adjourned to the scene of the wrestle. 
Money, whiskey, knives, and all manner of property 
were staked on the result. It is unnecessary to 
go into the details of the encounter. Every- 
one knows how it ended ; how at last the tall 
and angular rail-splitter, enraged at the suspicion 
of foul tactics, and profiting by his height 
and the length of his arms, fairly lifted the 
great bully by the throat and shook him like a 
rag; how by this act he established himself solidly 
in the esteem of all New Salem, and secured 
the respectful admiration and friendship of the 
very man whom he had so thoroughly vanquished.* 
From this time forward Jack Armstrong, his wife 



* Mr. Lincoln's remarkable strength resulted not so much from 
muscular power as from the toughness of his sinews. He could 
not only lift from the ground enormous weight, but could throw 
a cannon-ball or a maul farther than anyone else in New Salem. 
I heard him explain once how he was enabled thus to excel oth- 
ers. He did not attribute it to a greater proportion of physical 
strength, but contended that because of the unusual length of 
his arms the ball or projectile had a greater swing and there- 
fore acquired more force and momentum than in the hands of 
an average man. 



84 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Hannah, and all the other Armstrongs became his 
warm and trusted friends. None stood readier 
than they to rally to his support, none more will- 
ing to lend a helping hand. Lincoln appreciated 
their friendship and support, and in after years 
proved his gratitude by saving one member of the 
family from the gallows. 

The business done over OfTut's counter gave his 
clerk frequent intervals of rest, so that, if so inclined, 
an abundance of time for study was always at his 
disposal. Lincoln had long before realized the 
deficiencies of his education, and resolved, now that 
the conditions were favorable, to atone for early 
neglect by a course of study. Nothing was more 
apparent to him than his limited knowledge of 
language, and the proper way of expressing his ideas. 
Moreover, it may be said that he appreciated his 
inefficiency in a rhetorical sense, and therefore de- 
termined to overcome all these obstacles by master- 
ing the intricacies of grammatical construction. 
Acting on the advice of Mentor Graham he hunted 
up one Vaner, who was the reputed owner of Kirk- 
ham's Grammar, and after a walk of several miles 
returned to the store with the coveted volume under 
his arm. With zealous perseverance he at once 
applied himself to the book. Sometimes he would 
stretch out at full length on the counter, his head 
propped up on a stack of calico prints, studying it; 
or he would steal away to the shade of some invit- 
ing tree, and there spend hours at a time in a deter- 
mined efifort to fix in his mind the arbitrary rule 
that "adverbs qualify verbs, adjectives, and other 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 85 

adverbs." From the vapidity of grammar it was 
now and then a great relaxation to turn to the more 
agreeable subject of mathematics; and he might 
often have been seen lying face downwards, stretched 
out over six feet of grass, figuring out on scraps of 
paper some problem given for solution by a quiz- 
zical store lounger, or endeavoring to prove that, 
"multiplying the denominator of a fraction divides 
it, while dividing the denominator multiplies it." 
Rather a poor prospect one is forced to admit for 
a successful man of business. 

At this point in my narrative I am pained to drop 
from further notice our buoyant and effusive friend 
OfTut. His business ventures failing to yield the ex- 
tensive returns he predicted, and too many of his obli- 
gations maturing at the same time, he was forced to 
pay the penalty of commercial delinquency and went 
to the wall. He soon disappeared from the village, 
and the inhabitants thereof never knew whither he 
went. In the significant language of Lincoln he 
"petered out." As late as 1873 I received a letter 
from Dr. James Hall, a physician living at St. Den- 
nis, near Baltimore, Maryland, who, referring to the 
disappearance of Ofifut, relates the following reminis- 
cence : "Of what consequence to know or learn 
more of Ofifut I cannot imagine; but be assured he 
turned up after leaving New Salem. On meeting 
the name it seemed familiar, but I could not locate 
him. Finally I fished up from memory that some 
twenty-five years ago one "Denton Ofifut" appeared 
in Baltimore, hailing from Kentucky, advertising 
himself in the city papers as a verterinary surgeon 



85 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

and horse tamer, professing to have a secret to whis- 
per in the horse's ear, or a secret manner of whisper- 
ing in his ear, which he could communicate to oth- 
ers, and by which the most refractory and vicious 
horse could be quieted and controlled. For this 
secret he charged five dollars, binding the recipient 
by oath not to divulge it. I know several persons, 
young fancy horsemen, who paid for the trick. 
Offut advertised himself not only through the press, 
but by his strange attire. He appeared in the 
streets on horseback and on foot, in plain citizens' 
dress of black, but with a broad sash across his right 
shoulder, of various colored ribbons, crossed on his 
left hip under a large rosette of the same material, 
the whole rendering his appearance most ludicrously 
conspicuous. Having occasion to purchase a horse 
I encountered him at several of our stables and was 
strongly urged to avail myself of his secret. So 
much for Offut; but were he living in '61, I doubt 
not Mr. Lincoln would have heard of him." 

The early spring of 1832 brought to Springfield 
and New Salem a most joyful announcement. It 
was the news of the coming of a steamboat down 
the Sangamon river — proof incontestable that the 
stream was navigable. The enterprise was under- 
taken and carried through by Captain Vincent Bogue, 
of Springfield, who had gone to Cincinnati to procure 
a vessel and thus settle the much-mooted question 
of the river's navigability. When, therefore, he 
notified the people of his town that the steam- 
boat Talisman would put out from Cincinnati for 
Springfield, we can well imagine what great excite- 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. g/ 

merit and unbounded enthusiasm followed the an- 
nouncement. Springfield, New Salem, and all the 
other towns along the now interesting Sangamon* 
were to be connected by water with the outside 
world. Public meetings, with the accompaniment 
of long subscription lists, were held; the merchants 
of Springfield advertised the arrival of goods "di- 
rect from the East per steamer Talisman/' the 
mails were promised as often as once a week from 
the same direction ; all the land adjoining each 
enterprising and aspiring village along the river was 
subdivided into town lots — in fact, the wdiole region 
began to feel the stimulating effects of what, in 
later days, would have been called a ''boom." I 
remember the occasion well, for two reasons. It 
was my first sight of a steamboat, and also the first 
time I ever saw Mr. Lincoln — although I never be- 
came acquainted with him till his second race for 
the Legislature in 1834. Li response to the sug- 
gestion of Captain Bogue, made from Cincinnati, a 
number of citizens — among the number Lincoln — 
had gone down the river to Beardstown to meet 
the vessel as she emerged from the Illinois. These 
Vv-ere armed with axes having long handles, to cut 
away, as Bogue had recommended, "branches of trees 
hanging over from the banks." After having passed 
New Salem, I and other boys on horseback followed 
the boat, riding along the river's bank as far as 



* The final syllable of this name was then pronounced to 
rhyme with "raw." In later days the letter "n" was added — 
probably for euphony's sake. 



88 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Bogue's mill, where she tied up. There we went 
aboard, and lost in boyish wonder, feasted our eyes 
on the splendor of her interior decorations. The 
Sangamon Journal of that period contains numer- 
ous poetical efforts celebrating the Talis- 
man's arrival. A few lines under date of April 
5, 1832, unsigned, but supposed to have been 
the product of a local poet — one Oliphant* — were 
sung to the tune of "Clar de Kitchen." I cannot 
refrain from inflicting a stanza or two of this ode on 
the reader: 

"O, Captain Bogue he gave the load. 
And Captain Bogue he showed the road ; 
And we came up with a right good will, 
And tied our boat up to his mill. 

Now we are up the Sangamo, 
And here we'll have a grand hurra. 
So fill your glasses to the brim, 
Of whiskey, brandy, wine, and gin. 

Illinois suckers, young and raw. 
Were strung along the Sangamo, 
To see a boat come up by steam 
They surely thought it was a dream." 

On its arrival at Springfield, or as near Springfield 
as the river ran, the crew of the boat were given a 
reception and dance in the court-house. The cream 
of the town's society attended to pay their respects 
to the newly arrived guests. The captain in charge 
of the boat — not Captain Bogue, but a vainly 
dressed fellow from the East — was accompanied by 
a woman, more gaudily attired than himself, whom 



* E. p. Oliphant, a lawyer. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. gg 

he introduced as his wife. Of course the most con- 
siderate attention was shown them both, until later 
in the evening, when it became apparent that the 
gallant officer and his fair partner had imbibed too 
freely — for in those days we had plenty of good 
cheer — and were becoming unpleasantly demonstra- 
tive in their actions. This breach of good manners 
openly offended the high-toned nature of Spring- 
field's fair ladies ; but not more than the lament- 
able fact, which they learned on the following day, 
that the captain's partner was not his wife after all, 
but a woman of doubtful reputation whom he had 
brought with him from some place further east. 
But to return to the Talisman. That now inter- 
esting vessel lay for a week longer at Bogue's mill, 
when the receding waters admonished her officers 
that unless they purposed spending the remainder 
of the year there they must head her down-stream. 
In this emergency recourse was had to my cousin 
Rowan Herndon, who had had no little experience 
as a boatman, and who recommended the employ- 
ment of Lincoln as a skilful assistant. These two 
inland navigators undertook therefore the contract 
of piloting the vessel — which had now become ele- 
phantine in proportions — through the uncertain 
channel of the Sangamon to the Illinois river. 
The average speed was four miles a day. At New 
Salem safe passage over the mill-dam was deemed 
impossible unless the same could be lowered or a 
portion removed.* To this, Cameron and Rut- 



* The affair at New Salem is thus described by Oliphant in 
the poem before referred to : 



90 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

ledge, owners of the mill, entered their most stren- 
uous protest. The boat's officers responded that 
under the Federal Constitution and laws no one had 
the right to dam up or in any way obstruct a navi- 
gable stream, and they argued that, as they had just 
demonstrated that the Sangamon was navigable ( ?) , 
they proposed to remove enough of the obstruc- 
tion to let the boat through. Rowan Herndon, 
describing it to me in 1865, said: "When we 
struck the dam she hung. We then backed off and 
threw the anchor over. We tore away part of the 
dam and raising steam ran her over on the first 
trial." The entire proceeding stirred up no little 
feeling, in which mill owners, boat officers, and pas- 
sengers took part. The effect the return trip of 
the Talisman had on those who believed in the 
successful navigation of the Sangamon is shrewdly 
indicated by the pilot, who with laconic compla- 
cency adds : ''As soon as she was over, the com- 
pany that chartered her was done with her." Lin- 
coln and Herndon, in charge of the vessel, piloted 
her through to Beardstown. There they were paid 
forty dollars each, according to contract, and bid- 
ding adieu to the Talisman's officers and crew, 
set out on foot for New Salem again. A few 
months later the Talisman caught fire at the 
wharf in St. Louis and went up in flames. The 
experiment of establishing a steamboat line to 



'And -when we came to Salem dam, 

Up we went against it jam : 

We tried to cross with all our might, 

But found we couldn't and staid all night. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 9| 

Springfield proved an unfortunate venture for its 
projector, Captain Bogue. Finding himself unable 
to meet his rapidly maturing obligations, incurred in 
aid of the enterprise, it is presumed that he left the 
country, for the Journal of that period is filled 
with notices of attachment proceedings brought by 
vigilant creditors who had levied on his goods. 



CHAPTER V. 

The departure of the Talisman for deeper 
waters, the downfall of Denton Offut's varied 
enterprises and his disappearance from New Salem, 
followed in rapid succession, and before the spring 
of 1832 had merged into summer Lincoln found 
himself a piece of "floating driftwood" again. 
Where he might have lodged had not the Black 
Hawk war intervened can only be a matter of con- 
jecture. A glance at this novel period in his life 
may not be out of keeping with the purpose of this 
book. The great Indian chief. Black Hawk, who 
on the 30th of June, 1831, had entered into an 
agreement, having all the solemnity of a treaty, with 
Governor Reynolds and General Gaines that none of 
his tribe should ever cross the Mississippi "to their 
usual place of residence, nor any part of their old 
hunting grounds east of the Mississippi, without 
permission of the President of the United States or 
the governor of the State of Illinois," had openly 
broken the compact. On the 6th of April, 1832, he 
recrossed the Mississippi and marched up Rock 
River Valley, accompanied by about five hundred 
warriors on horseback ; while his women and children 
went up the river in canoes. The great chief was 
now sixty-seven years old, and believed that his plots 

92 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 93 

were all ripe and his allies fast and true. Although 
warned by General Atkinson, then in command of 
Fort Armstrong, against this aggression, and 
ordered to return, he proudly refused, claiming that 
he had "come to plant corn." On being informed 
of the movement of Black Hawk Governor Reynolds 
called for a thousand mounted volunteers to co-op- 
erate with the United States forces under command 
of General Atkinson, and drive the wily Indian 
back across the Mississippi. The response to the 
governor's call was prompt and energetic. In the 
company from Sangamon county Lincoln enlisted, 
and now for the first time entered on the vicissi- 
tudinous and dangerous life of a soldier. That he 
in fact regarded the campaign after the Indians as 
a sort of holiday affair and chicken-stealing expe- 
dition is clearly shown in a speech he afterwards 
made in Congress in exposure of the military pre- 
tensions of General Cass. However, in grim, sol- 
dierly severity he marched with the Sangamon 
county contingent to Rushville,* in Schuyler 
county, where, much to his surprise, he was elected 

* While at the rendezvous at Rushville and on the march to 
the front Lincoln of course drilled his men, and gave them 
such meager instruction in military tactics as he could im- 
part. Some of the most grotesque things he ever related were 
descriptions of these drills. lii marching one morning at 
the head of the company, who were following in lines of 
twenty abreast, it became necessary to pass through a gate 
much narrower than the lines. The captain could not re- 
member the proper command to turn the company endwise, 
and the situation was becoming decidedly embarrassing, when 
one of those thoughts born of the depths of despair came to 
his rescue. Facing the lines he shouted : "Halt ! This company 
will break ranks for two minutes and form again on the 
other side of the gate." The manoeuvre was successfully 
executed. 



94 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

captain of the company over William Kirkpatrick. 
A recital of the campaign that followed, in the effort 
to drive the treacherous Indians back, or a descrip- 
tion of the few engagements — none of which 
reached the dignity of a battle — which took place, 
have in no wdse been overlooked by the historians 
of Illinois and of the Black Hawk war. With the 
exception of those things which relate to Lincoln 
alone I presume it would be needless to attempt to 
add anything to what has so thoroughly and truth- 
fully been told. 

On being elected captain, Lincoln replied in a 
brief response of modest and thankful acceptance. 
It was the first official trust ever turned over to his 
keeping, and he prized it and the distinction it gave 
him more than any which in after years fell to his 
lot. His company savored strongly of the Clary's 
Grove order, and though daring enough in the 
presence of danger, were difficult to bring down to 
the inflexibilities of military discipline. Each one 
seemed perfectly able and willing to care for him- 
self, and while the captian's authority was respect- 
fully observed, yet, as some have said, they were 
none the less a crowd of "generous ruffians." I 
heard Mr. Lincoln say once on the subject of his 
career as captain in this company and the discipline 
he exercised over his men, that to the first order 
given one of them he received the response, "Go to 
the devil, sir!" Notwithstanding the interchange of 
many such unsoldierlike civilities between the officer 
and his men, a strong bond of affection united them 
together, and if a contest had arisen over the con- 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 95 

flict of orders between the United States authorities 
and those emanating from Captain Lincoln or some 
other IlHnois officer-as at one time was threatened 
—we need not be told to which side the Sanga- 
mon county company to a man would have gone. 
A general order forbidding the discharge of fire- 
arms within fifty yards of the camp was disobeyed 
by Captain Lincoln himself. For this violation of 
rule he was placed under arrest and deprived of his 
sword for a day. But this and other punishments 
in no way humiliated him in the esteem of his 
men; if anything, they only clung the closer and 
when Clary's Grove friendship asserted itself, it 
meant that firm and generous attachment found 
alone on the frontier-that bond, closer than the 
affinity of blood, which becomes stronger as danger 
approaches death. 

A soldier of the Sangamon county company 
broke into the officers' quarters one night, and with 
the aid of a tomahawk and four buckets, obtained 
by stealth a good supply of wines and liquors, which 
he generously distributed to his appreciative com- 
rades The next morning at daybreak, when the 
armv began to move, the Sangamon county com- 
pany, much to their captain's astonishment, were 
unfit for the march. Their nocturnal expedition 
had been too much for them, and one by one they 
fell by the wayside, until but a mere handful re- 
mained to keep step with their gallant and 
astounded captain. Those who fell behind gradu- 
ally overcame the eflfects of their carousal, but were 
hard pressed to overtake the command, and it was 



96 -^J^ LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

far into the night when the last one straggled into 
camp. The investigation which followed resulted 
only in the captain suffering the punishment for 
the more guilty men. For this infraction of mili- 
tary law he was put under arrest and made to carry 
a wooden sword for two days, **and this too," as 
one of his company has since assured me, ''although 
he was entirely blameless in the matter." 

Among the few incidents of Lincoln's career in 
the Black Hawk war that have found a place in his- 
tory was his manly interference to protect an old 
Indian who strayed, hungry and helpless, into camp 
one day, and whom the soldiers were conspiring to 
kill on the ground that he was a spy. A letter 
from General Cass, recommending him for his past 
kind and faithful services to the whites, which the 
trembling old savage drew from beneath the folds 
of his blanket failed in any degree to appease the 
wrath of the men who confronted him. They had 
come out to fight the treacherous Indians, and here 
was one who had the temerity even to steal into 
their camp. "Make an example of him," they ex- 
claimed. "The letter is a forgery and he is a spy." 
They might have put their threats into execution 
had not the tall form of their captain, his face 
"swarthy with resolution and rage," interposed itself 
between them and their defenseless victim. Lin- 
coln's determined look and demand that "it must 
not be done" were enough. They sullenly desisted, 
and the Indian, unmolested, continued on his way. 

Lincoln's famous wrestling match with the re- 
doubtable Thompson, a soldier from Union county. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 9/ 

who managed to throw him twice in succession, 
caused no diminution in the admiration and pride 
his men felt in their captain's muscle and prowess. 
They declared that unfair advantage had been 
taken of their champion, that Thompson had 
been guilty of foul tactics, and that, in the language 
of the sporting arena, it was a "dog-fall." Lin- 
coln's magnanimous action, however, in according 
his opponent credit for fair dealing in the face of 
the wide-spread and adverse criticism that prevailed, 
only strengthened him in the esteem of all.* 

At times the soldiers were hard pressed for food, 
but by a combination of ingenuity and labor in pro- 
portions known only to a volunteer soldier, they 
managed to avoid the unpleasant results of long- 
continued and unsatisfied hunger. *'At an old 
Winnebago town called Turtle Village," narrates 
a member of the company, "after stretching our 
rations over nearly four days, one of our mess, an 
old acquaintance of Lincoln, G. B. Fanchier, shot a 
dove, and having a gill of flour left we made a gallon 
and a half of delicious soup in an old tin bucket 
that had been lost by Indians. This soup we 
divided among several messes that were hungrier 



* William L. Wilson, a survivor of the war, in a letter under 
date of February 3, 1882, after detailing reminiscences of 
Stillman's defeat, says : "I have during that time had much 
fun with the afterwards President of tlie United States, 
Abraham Lincoln. I remember one time of wrestling with him, 
two best in three, and ditched him. He was not satisfied, and 
we tried it in a foot-race for a five-dollar bill. I won the 
money, and 'tis spent long ago. And many more reminiscences 
could I give, but am of the Quaker persuasion, and not much 
given to writing." 



98 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

than we were and our own mess, by pouring in each 
man's cup a portion of the esculent. Once more, at 
another time, in the extreme northern part of Ilhnois, 
we had been very hungry for two days, but suddenly 
came upon a new cabin at the edge of the prairie 
that the pioneer sovereign squatter family had va- 
cated and 'skedaddled' from for fear of losing their 
scalps. There were plenty of chickens about the 
cabin, much hungrier than we ourselves were, if pov- 
erty is to test the matter, and the boys heard a voice 
saying 'Slay and eat.' They at once went to run- 
ning, clubbing, and shooting them as long as they 
could be found. Whilst the killing was going on I 
climbed to the ridge-pole of the smoke-house to see 
distinctly what I saw obscurely from the ground, 
and behold ! the cleanest, sweetest jole I ever saw — 
alone, half hid by boards and ridge-pole, stuck up 
no doubt for future use. By this time many of the 
chickens were on the fire, broiling, for want of grease 
or gravy to fry them in. Some practical fellow 
proposed to throw in with the fowls enough bacon 
to convert broiling into frying; the proposition was 
adopted, and they were soon fried. We began to 
eat the tough, dry chickens with alternating mouth- 
fuls of the jole, when Lincoln came to the repast 
with the query, 'Eating chicken, boys?' 'Not 
much, sir,' I responded, for we had operated princi- 
pally on the jole, it being sweeter and more palatable 
than the chickens. 'It is much like eating saddle- 
bags,' he responded; 'but I think the stomach can 
accomplish much to-day; but what have you got 
there with the skeletons, George?' 'We did have 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 99 

a sweet jole of a hog, sir,' I answered, 'but you are 
nearly too late for your share,' at the same time 
making room for him to approach the elm-bark 
dish. He ate the bacon a moment, then com- 
menced dividing by mouthfuls to the boys from 
other messes, who came to 'see what Abe was at,' 
and saying many quaint and funny things suited to 
the time and the jole." The captain, it will be seen, 
by his "freedom without familiarity" and his 
"courtesy without condescension," was fast making 
inroads on the respect of his rude but appreciative 
men. He was doubtless looking a long way ahead, 
when both their friendship and respect would be of 
avail, for as the chronicler last quoted from con- 
tinues : "He was acquainted with everybody, and 
he had determined, as he told me, to become a can- 
didate for the next Legislature. The mess imme- 
diately pitched on him as our standard-bearer, and 
he accepted." 

The term for which the volunteers had enlisted 
had now expired, and the majority, tiring of the ser- 
vice, the novelty of which had worn off, and longing 
for the comforts and good cheer of their homes, 
refused either to re-enlist or render further service. 
They turned their faces homeward, each with his 
appetite for military glory well satiated. But the 
war was not over, and the mighty Black Hawk was 
still east of the INIississippi. A few remained and 
re-enlisted. Among them was Lincoln. This time, 
eschewing the responsibility of a captaincy, and to 
avoid the possible embarrassment of dragging about 
camp a wooden sword, he entered the company of 



100 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Elijah lies as a dignified private. It has pleased 
some of Mr. Lincoln's biographers to attribute this 
re-enlistment to pure patriotism on his part and 
a conscientious desire to serve his country. From 
the standpoint of sentiment that is a comfortable 
view to take of it ; but I have strong reason to be- 
lieve that Mr. Lincoln never entertained such serious 
notions of the campaign. In fact, I m.ay say that 
my information comes from the best authority to be 
had in the matter — the soldier himself. Mr. 
Lincoln had no home; he had cut loose from his 
parents, from the Hankses and the Johnstons ; he 
left behind him no anxious wife and children; and 
no chair before a warm fireside remained vacant for 
him. **I was out of work," he said to me once, 
"and there being no danger of more fighting, I 
could do nothing better than enlist again." 

After his discharge from this last and brief period 
of service, along with the remainder of the Sanga- 
mon county soldiers, he departed from the scenes 
of recent hostilities for New Salem again. His 
soldier days had ended, and he returned now to 
enter upon a far different career. However much 
in later years he may have pretended to ridicule 
the disasters of the Black Hawk war, or the part he 
took in it, yet I believe he was rather proud of it 
after all. When Congress, along in the fifties, 
granted him a land warrant he was greatly pleased. 
He located it on some land in Iowa, and declared 
to me one day that he would die seized of that 
land, and although the tract never yielded him 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 101 

anything he never, so far as my knowledge extends 
parted with its ownership.* 

The return of the Black Hawk warriors to New 
Salem occurred in the month of August, but a short 
time before the general election. A new Legislature 
was to be chosen, and as Lincoln had declared to 
his comrades in the army he would, and in obedi- 
ence to the effusive declaration of principles which 
he had issued over his signature in March, before 
he went to the war, he presented himself to the 
people of his newly adopted county as a candidate 
for the Legislature. It is not necessary to enter 
into an account of the political conditions in Illinois 
at that time, or the effect had on the same by those 



* "In regard to the Bounty Land Warrants issued to Abra- 
ham Lincoln for military services during the Black Hawk war 
as Captain of 4th Illinois Volunteers, the first warrant, No. 
52,076, for forty acres (Act of 1850), was issued to Abraham 
Lincoln, Captain, etc. on the 16th of April, 1852, and was lo- 
cated in his name by his duly appointed attorney, John P. 
Davis, at Dubuque, Iowa, July 21, 1854, on the north-west 
quarter of the south-west quarter of section 20, in Township 
84, north of Range 39, west, Iowa. A patent as recorded in 
volume 280, page 21, was issued for this tract to Abraham 
Lincoln on the 1st of June, 1855, and transmitted the 26th 
October, 1855, to the Register of delivery. 

"Under the Act of 1855, another Land Warrant, No. 68,465, 
for 120 acres, was issued to Abraham Lincoln, Captain Illinois 
Militia, Black Hawk war, on the 22d April, 1856. and was 
located by himself at Springfield. Illinois, December 27, 1859, 
on the east half of the north-east quarter and the north-west 
quarter of the north-east quarter of section 18, in Township 
84, north of Range 39, west ; for which a patent, as recorded 
in volume 468, page 53, was issued September 10, 1860, and 
sent October 30, 1860, to the Register for delivery." — Letter 
Jos. S. V^ilson Acting Commissioner Land Office, June 27, 1865. 



102 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

who had in charge the governmental machinery. 
Lincoln's course is all that interests us. Though 
he may not have distinctly avowed himself a Whig, 
yet, as one of his friends asserted, "he stood 
openly on Whig principles." He favored a national 
bank, a liberal system of internal improvements, 
and a high protective tariff. The handbill or cir- 
cular alluded to announcing his candidacy was a 
sort of literary fulmination, but on account of its 
length I deem it unnecessary to insert the whole of 
it here. I have been told that it was prepared by 
Lincoln, but purged of its most glaring grammat- 
ical errors by James McNamar, who afterwards 
became Lincoln's . rival in an important love 
affair.* 

The circular is dated March 9, 1832, and ad- 
dressed to the "People of Sangamon County." In 
it he takes up all the leading questions of the day: 
railroads, river navigation, internal improvements, 
and usury. He dwells particularly on the matter 
of public education, alluding to it as the most im- 
portant subject before the people. Realizing his own 
defects arising from a lack of school instruction he 
contends that every man and his children, however 
poor, should be permitted to obtain at -least a mod- 
erate education, and thereby be enabled "to read 
the Scriptures and other works both of a moral and 
religious nature for themselves." The closing par- 



* In a letter dated May 5, 1866, McNamar says: 
"I corrected at his request some of the grammatical errors 
in his first address to the voters of Sangamon county, his 
principal hobby being the navigation of the Sangamon river." 



THE LIFE OF Li:S'COLN. 103 

agraph was so constructed as to appeal to the chiv- 
alrous sentiments of Clary's Grove. **I was born 
and have ever remained," he declares, "in the most 
humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popu- 
lar relatives or friends to recommend me. My case 
is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters 
of the county; and if elected they will have con- 
ferred a favor upon me for which I shall be unre- 
mitting in my labors to compensate. But if," he 
dryly concludes, "the good people in their wisdom 
shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have 
been too familiar w4th disappointments to be very 
much chagrined." 

The election being near at hand only a few days 
remained for his canvass. One* who was with him 
at the time describing his appearance, says : "He 
wore a mixed jeans coat, clawhammer style, short 
in the sleeves and bobtail — in fact it was so short 
in the tail he could not sit on it; flax and tow- 
linen pantaloons, and a straw hat. I think he wore 
a vest, but do not remember how it looked. He 
wore pot-metal boots." His maiden effort on the 
stump was a speech on the occasion of a public 
sale at Pappsville, a village eleven miles west of 
Springfield. After the sale was over and speech- 
making had begun, a fight — a "general fight," as 
one of the bystanders relates — ensued, and Lincoln, 
noticing one of his friends about to succumb to 
the energetic attack of an infuriated ruffian, inter- 
posed to prevent it. He did so most effectually. 



• A. T. Ellis, letter, June 5, 1866, MS. 



104 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Hastily 4escending from the rude platform he 
edged his way through the crowd, and seizing the 
bully by the neck and seat of his trowsers, threw 
him by means of his strength and long arms, as one 
witness stoutly insists, "twelve feet away." Re- 
turning to the stand and throwing aside his hat he 
inaugurated his campaign with the following brief 
but juicy declaration: * 

"Fellow Citizens, I presume you all know who I 
am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been 
solicited by many friends to become a candidate for 
the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, 
like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a 
national bank. I am in favor of the internal im.- 
provement system and a high protective tariff. 
These are my sentiments and political principles. 
If elected I shall be thankful; if not it will be all 
the same." 

I obtained this speech from A. Y. Ellis, who in 
1865 wrote it out. Ellis was his friend and sup- 
porter, and took no little interest in his canvass. 
"I accompanied him," he relates, "on one of his 
electioneering trips to Island Grove, and he made 
a speech which pleased his party friends very well 
indeed, though some of the Jackson men tried to 
make "sport of it. He told several anecdotes, and 
applied them, as I thought, very well. He also told 
the boys several stories which drew them after him. 
I remember them, but modesty and my veneration 
for his memory forbid me to relate them." His 
story-telling propensity, and the striking fitness of 
his yarns — many of them being of the bar-room 



J* 

THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. jq- 

order— in illustrating public questions, as we shall 
see further along in these chapters, was really one 
of the secrets of his popularity and strength 
The election, as he had predicted, resulted in his 
defeat— the only defeat, as he himself afterward 
stated, that he ever suffered at the hands of the 
people. But there was little defeat in it after all 
Out of the eight unsuccessful candidates he stood 
third from the head of the list, receiving 657 votes 
Five others received less. The most gratifying 
feature of it all was the hearty support of his 
neighbors at New Salem. Of the entire 208 votes 
m the precinct he received every one save three. 

It may not be amiss to explain the cause of this 
remarkable endorsement of Lincoln by the voters 
m New Salem. It arose chiefly from his advocacy 
of the improvement of the Sangamon river He 
proposed the digging of a canal a few miles east of 
the point where the Sangamon enters the Illinois 
river, thereby giving the former two mouths. 
This, he explained to the farmers, would prevent 
the accumulation of back-water and consequent 
overflow of their rich alluvial bottom lands in the 
spring. It would also avert the sickness and evil 
results of stagnant pools, which formed in low 
places after the high waters receded. His Itheme 
—that is the nam^ by which it would be known 
to-day— commended itself to the judgment of his 
neighbors, and the flattering vote he received shows 
how they endorsed it. 

The unsuccessful result of the election did not 
dampen his hopes nor sour his ambition. The ex- 



106 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

tensive acquaintance, the practice in public speak- 
ing, the confidence gained with the people, to- 
gether with what was augmented in himself, made a 
surplus of capital on which he was free to draw and 
of which he afterwards frequently availed himself. 
The election being over, however, he found himself 
without money, though with a goodly supply of 
experience, drifting again. His political experience 
had forever weaned him from the dull routine of 
common labor. Labor afforded him no time for 
study and no incentive to profitable reflection. 
What he seemed to want was some lighter work, 
employment in a store or tavern where he could meet 
the village celebrities, exchange views with strangers, 
discuss politics, horse-races, cock-fights, and narrate 
to listening loafers his striking and significant 
stories. In the communities where he had lived, 
the village store-keeper held undisturbed sway. 
He took the only newspaper, owned the only col- 
lection of books and half the property in the vil- 
lage; and in general was the social, and oftentimes 
the political head of the community. Naturally, 
therefore the prominence the store gave the mer- 
chant attracted Lincoln. But there seemed no 
favorable opening for him — clerks in New Salem 
were^ot in demand just then. 

My cousins, Rowan and James Herndon, were at 
that time operating a store, and tiring of their 
investment and the confinement it necessitated, 
James sold his interest to an idle, shiftless fellow 
named William Berry. Soon after Rowan disposed 
of his to Lincoln. That the latter, who was with- 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 10/ 

out means and in search of work, could succeed to 
the ownership of even a half interest in a concern 
w^here but a few days before he would in all proba- 
bility gladly have exchanged his services for his 
board, doubtless seems strange to the average 
young business man of to-day. I once asked 
Rowan Herndon what induced him to make such 
liberal terms in dealing with Lincoln, whom he had 
known for so short a time. 

"I believed he was thoroughly honest," was the 
reply, "and that impression was so strong in me I 
accepted his note in payment of the whole. He 
had no money, but I would have advanced him 
still more had he asked for it." 

Lincoln and Berry had been installed in business 
but a short time until one Reuben Radford, the pro- 
prietor of another New Salem grocery, who, happen- 
ing to incur the displeasure of the Clary's Grove 
boys, decided suddenly one morning, in the commer- 
cial language of later days, to "retire from busi- 
ness." A visit by night of the Clary's Grove con- 
tingent always hastened any man's retirement from 
business. The windows were driven in, and posses- 
sion taken of the stock without either ceremony or 
inventory. If, by break of day, the unfortunate 
proprietor found any portion of his establishment 
standing where he left it the night before, he might 
count himself lucky. In Radford's case, fearing 
"his bones might share the fate of his windows," 
he disposed of his stock and good-will to William 
Greene for a consideration of four hundred dollars. 
The latter employed Lincoln to make an inventory 



108 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

of the goods, and when completed, the new mer- 
chant, seeing m it something of a speculation, offered 
Greene an advance of two hundred and fifty dollars 
on his investment. The offer was accepted, and the 
stock and fixtures passed into the ownership and 
control of the now enterprising firm of Lincoln & 
Berry. They subsequently absorbed the remnant 
of a store belonging to one Rutledge, which last 
transaction cleared the field of all competitors and 
left them in possesion of the only merchantile con- 
cern in New Salem. 

To eff'ect these sales not a cent of money was 
required — the buyer giving the seller his note and 
the latter assigning it to someone else in another 
trade. Berry gave his note to James Herndon, 
Lincoln his to Rowan Herndon, while Lincoln & 
Berry as a firm, executed their obligation to Greene, 
Radford, and Rutledge in succession. Surely Wall 
Street at no time in its history has furnished a brace 
of speculators who in so brief a period accomplished 
so much and with so little money. A few weeks 
only were sufficient to render apparent Lincoln's ill 
adaptation to the requirements of a successful bus- 
iness career. Once installed behind the counter 
he gave himself up to reading and study, de- 
pending for the practical management of the bus- 
iness on his partner. A more unfortunate selec- 
tion than Berry could not have been found; for, 
while Lincoln at one end of the store was dis- 
pensing political information, Berry at the other was 
disposing of the firm's liquors, being the best cus- 
tomer for that article of merchandise himself. To 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 109 

put it more plainly, Lincoln's application to Shake- 
speare and Burns was only equalled by Berry's atten- 
tion to spigot and barrel. That the latter in the 
end succeeded in squandering a good portion of 
their joint assets, besides wrecking his own health, is 
not to be wondered at. By the spring of 1833 they, 
like their predecessors, were ready to retire. Two 
brothers named Trent coming along, they sold to 
them on the liberal terms then prevalent the busi- 
ness and good-will; but before the latter's notes 
fell due, they in turn had failed and fled. The 
death of Berry following soon after, released him 
from the payment of any notes or debts, and thus 
Lincoln was left to meet the unhonored obligations 
of the ill-fated partnership, or avoid their payment 
by dividing the responsibility and pleading the fail- 
ure of the business. That he assumed all the lia- 
bility and set resolutely to work to pay everything, 
was strictly in keeping with his fine sense of honor 
and justice. He was a long time meeting these 
claims, even as late as 1848 sending to me from 
Washington portions of his salary as Congressman 
to be applied on the unpaid remnant of the Berry 
& Lincoln indebtedness — but in time he extin- 
guished it all, even to the last penny. 

Conscious of his many shortcomings as a mer- 
chant, and undaunted by the unfortunate complica- 
tions from which he had just been released, Lincoln 
returned to his books. Rowan Herndon, with 
whom he had been living, having removed to the 
country, he became for the first time a sojourner at 
the tavern, as it was then called — a public-house kept 



110 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

by Rutledge, Onstatt, and Alley in succession. "It 
was a small log house," he explained to me in later 
years, ''covered with clapboards, and contained 
four rooms." It was second only in importance to 
the store, for there he had the opportunity of meet- 
ing passing strangers — lawyers and others from the 
county seat, whom he frequently impressed with 
his knowledge as well as wit. He had, doubtless, 
long before determined to prepare himself for the 
law; in fact, had begun to read Blackstone while in 
the store, and now went at it with renewed zeal. He 
borrowed law-books of his former comrade in the 
Black Hawk war, John T. Stuart, who was practic- 
ing law in Springfield, frequently walking there to 
return one and borrow another. His determination 
to master any subject he undertook and his appli- 
cation to study were of the most intense order. On 
the road to and from Springfield he would read and 
recite from the book he carried open in his hand, 
and claimed to have mastered forty pages of 
Blackstone during the first day after his return from 
Stuart's office. At New Salem he frequently sat 
barefooted under the shade of a tree near the 
store, poring over a volume of Chitty or Blackstone, 
sometimes lying on his back, putting his feet up the 
tree, which provokes one of his biographers to de- 
note the latter posture as one which might have been 
"unfavorable to mental application, in the case of a 
man with shorter extremities." 

That Lincoln's attempt to make a lawyer of himself 
under such adverse and unpromising circumstances 
excited comment is not to be wondered at. Russell 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. HI 

Godby, an old man who still survives, told me in 
1865, that he had often employed Lincoln to do 
farm work for him, and was surprised to find him 
one day sitting barefoot on the summit of a wood- 
pile and attentively reading a book. 'This being 
an unusual thing for farm hands in that early day 
to do, I asked him," relates Godby, "what he was 
reading." 'I'm not reading,' he answered. I'm 
studying.' 'Studying what?' I enquired. 'Law, 
sir,' was the emphatic response. It was really too 
much for me, as I looked at him sitting there proud 
as Cicero. 'Great God Almighty!' I exclaimed, 
and passed on." 

But Lincoln kept on at his studies. Wherever he 
was and whenever he could do so the book was 
brought into use. He carried it with him in his 
rambles through the woods and his walks to the 
river. When night came he read it by the aid 
of any friendly light he could find. Frequently 
he went down to the cooper's shop and kindled a 
fire out of the waste material lying about, and by 
the light it afforded read until far into the night. 

One of his companions at this time relates that, 
"while clerking in the store or serving as post- 
master he would apply himself as opportunity offered 
to his studies, if it was but five minutes time — 
would open his book w^hich he always kept at hand, 
study it, reciting to himself ; then entertain the com- 
pany present or wait on a customer without ap- 
parent annoyance from the interruption. Have 
frequently seen him reading while w^alking along the 
streets. Occasionally he would become absorbed 



112 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

with his book ; would stop and stand for a few 
moments, then walk on, or pass from one house to 
another or from one crowd or squad of men to an- 
other. He was apparently seeking amusement, and 
with his thoughtful face and ill-fitting clothes was 
the last man one would have singled out for a 
student. If the company he was in was unappre- 
ciative, or their conversation at all irksome, he 
would open his book and commune with it for a 
time, until a happy thought suggested itself and 
then the book would again return to its wonted 
resting-place under his arm. He never appeared 
to be a hard student, as he seemed to master his 
studies with little effort, until he commenced the 
study of the law. In that he became wholly en- 
grossed, and began for the first time to avoid the 
society of men, in order that he might have more 
time for study. He was not what is usually termed 
a quick-minded man, although he would usually 
arrive at his conclusions very readily. He seemed 
invariably to reflect and deliberate, and never acted 
from impulse so far as to force a wrong conclusion 
on a subject of any moment."* 

It was not long until he was able to draw up 
deeds, contracts, mortgages, and other legal papers 
for his neighbors. He figured conspicuously as a 
pettifogger before the justice of the peace, but re- 
garding it merely as a kind of preliminary practice, 
seldom made any charge for his services. Mean- 
while he was reading not only law books but natural 

* R. B. Rutledge, letter, Nov. 30, 1866, MS. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 113 

philosophy and other scientific subjects. He was a 
careful and patient reader of newspapers, the San- 
gamon Journal — published at Springfield — Louis- 
ville Journal, St. Louis Republican, and Cincinnati 
Gazette being usually within his reach. He paid a 
less degree of attention to historical works, although 
he read Rollin and Gibbon while in business with 
Berry. He had a more pronounced fondness for 
fictitious literature, and read with evident relish 
Mrs. Lee Hentz's novels, which were very popular 
books in that day, and which were kindly loaned 
him by his friend A. Y. Ellis. The latter was a 
prosperous and shrewd young merchant who 
had come up from Springfield and taken quite a 
fancy to Lincoln. The two slept together and 
Lincoln frequently assisted him in the store. He 
says that Lincoln was fond of short, spicy stories 
one and two columns long, and cites as specimens, 
"Cousin Sally Dillard," "Becky William's Court- 
ship," "The Down-Easter and the Bull." and 
others, the very titles suggesting the character of the 
productions. He remembered everything he read, 
and could afterwards without apparent difficulty 
relate it. In fact, Mr. Lincoln's fame as a story- 
teller spread far and wide. Men quoted his sayings, 
repeated his jokes, and in remote places he was 
known as a story-teller before he was heard of either 
as lawyer or politician. 

It has been denied as often as charged that Lin- 
coln narrated vulgar stories; but the truth is he 
loved a story however extravagant or vulgar, if it had 
a good point. If it was merely a ribald recital and 



114 '^HE ^^^E ^F LINCOLN. 

had no sting in the end, that is, if it exposed no 
weakness or pointed no moral, he had no use for it 
either in conversation or public speech; but if it 
had the necessary ingredients of mirth and moral 
no one could use it with more telling effect. As 
a mimic he was unequalled, and with his character- 
istic gestures, he built up a reputation for story-tell- 
ing — although fully as many of his narratives were 
"borrowed as original — which followed him through 
life. One who hstened to his early stories in New 
Salem says: *'His laugh was striking. Such awk- 
ward gestures belonged to no other man. They 
attracted universal attention, from the old sedate 
down to the schoolboy. Then in a few moments 
he was as calm and thoughtful as a judge on the 
bench, and as ready to give advice on the most 
important matters ; fun and gravity grew on him 
alike." 

Lincoln's lack of musical adaptation has deprived 
us of many a song. For a ballad or doggerel he 
sometimes had quite a liking. He could memorize 
or recite the lines but some one else had to do the 
singing. Listen to one in which he shows ''Hozv 
St. Patrick Came to be Born on the lyth of March!* 
AVho composed it or where Lincoln obtained it I 
have never been able to learn. Ellis says he often 
inflicted it on the crowds who collected in his store 
of winter evenings. Here it is: 

"The first factional fight in old Ireland, they say, 
Was all on account of Saint Patinck's birthday. 
It was somewhere about midniglit without any doubt, 
And certain it is, it made a great rout. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. II5 

On the eighth day of March, as some people say, 
St. Patrick at midnight he first saw the day ; 
While others assert "'twas the ninth he was born — 
'Twas all a mistake — between midnight and morn. 

Some blamed the baby, some blamed the clock ; 
Some blamed the doctor, some the crowing cock. 
With all these close questions sure no one could know. 
Whether the babe was too fast or the clock was too slow. 

Some fought for the eighth, for the ninth some would die ; 
He who wouldn't see right would have a black eye. 
At length these two factions so positive grew, 
They each had a birthday, and Pat he had two. 

Till Father Mulcahay who showed them their sins, 
He said none could have two birthdays but as twins. 
'Now Boys, don't be fighting for the eight or the nine 
Don't quarrel so always, now why not combine.' 

Combine eight with nine. It is the mark ; 

Let that be the birthday. Amen ! said the clerk. 

So all got blind drunk, which completed their bliss, 

And they've kept up the practice from that day to this."* 

As a salesman, Lincoln was lamentably deficient. 
He was too prone to lead off into a discussion of 
politics or morality, leaving someone else to finish 
the trade which he had undertaken. One of his 
employers says: "He always disliked to wait on 
the ladies, preferring, he said, to wait on the men 
and boys. I also remember he used to sleep on the 
store counter when they had too much company at 
the tavern. He wore flax and tow linen pantaloons 
— I thought about five inches too short in the legs 
— and frequently had but one suspender, no vest or 



*From MS., furnished by Ellis in August, 1866. 



116 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

coat. He wore a calico shirt, such as he had in the 
Black Hawk war ; coarse brogans, tan color ; blue 
yarn socks and straw hat, old style, and without a 
band." His friend Ellis attributed his shyness in 
the presence of the ladies to the consciousness of 
his awkward appearance and the unpretentious con- 
dition of his wearing apparel. It was more than 
likely due to pure bashfulness. "On one occasion," 
continues Ellis, "while we boarded at the tavern, 
there came a family consisting of an old lady, her 
son, and three stylish daughters, from the State of 
Virginia, who stopped there for two or three weeks, 
and during their stay 1 do not remember of Mr. 
Lincoln's ever appearing at the same table with 
them." 

As a society man, Lincoln was singularly defi- 
cient while he lived in New Salem, and even during 
the remainder of his life. He never indulged in 
gossip about the ladies, nor aided in the circulation 
of village scandal. For woman he had a high re- 
gard, and I can testify that during my long acquaint- 
ance with him his conversation was free from 
injurious comment in individual cases — freer from 
unpleasant allusions than that of most men. At 
one time Major Hill charged him with making 
defamatory remarks regarding his wife. Hill was 
insulting in his language to Lincoln who never lost 
his temper. When he saw a chance to edge a word 
in, Lincoln denied emphatically using the language 
or anything like that attributed to him. He enter- 
tained, he insisted, a high regard for Mrs. Hill, and 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. HJ 

the only thing he knew to her discredit was the fact 
that she was Major Hill's wife. 

At this time in its brief history New Salem was 
what in the parlance of large cities would be called 
a fast place; and it was difficult for a young man of 
ordinary moral courage to resist the temptations 
that beset him on every hand. It remains a matter 
of surprise that Lincoln was able to retain his pop- 
ularity with the hosts of young men of his own age, 
and still not join them in their drinking bouts and 
carousals. "I am certain," contends one of his 
companions, "that he never drank any intoxicating 
liquors — he did not even in those days smoke or 
chew tobacco." In sports requiring either muscle 
or skill he took no little interest. He indulged in 
all the games of the day, even to a horse-race or 
cock-fight. At one eventful chicken fight, where a 
fee of twenty-five cents for the entrance of each 
fowl was assessed, one Bap. McNabb brought a 
little red rooster, whose fighting qualities had been 
well advertised for days in advance by his owner. 
Much interest was naturally taken in the contest. 
As the outcome of these contests was generally a 
quarrel, in which each man, charging foul play, 
seized his victim, they chose Lincoln umpire, rely- 
ing not only on his fairness but his ability to en- 
force his decisions. In relating what followed I 
cannot improve on the description furnished me in 
February, 1865, by one* who was present. 

"They formed a ring, and the time having arrived, 

• A. T. Ellis, MS. 



llg THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Lincoln, with one hand on each hip and in a squat- 
ting position, cried, 'Ready.' Into the ring they 
toss their fowls, Bap's red rooster along with the 
rest. But no sooner had the little beauty discov- 
ered what was to be done than he dropped his tail 
and ran. The crowd cheered, while Bap. in disap- 
pointment picked him up and started away, losing 
his quarter and carrying home his dishonored fowl. 
Once arrived at the latter place he threw his pet 
down with a feeling of indignation and chagrin. 
The little fellow, out of sight of all rivals, mounted 
a wood pile and proudly flirting out his feathers, 
crowed with all his might. Bap. looked on in dis- 
gust. 'Yes, you little cuss,' he exclaimed, irrever- 
ently, 'you're great on dress parade, but not worth a 
d — n in a fight.' " It is said — how truthfully I do 
not know — that at some period during the late war 
Mr. Lincoln in conversation with a friend likened 
McClellan to Bap. McNabb's rooster. So much 
for New Salem sports. 

While wooing that jealous-eyed mistress, the 
law, Lincoln was earning no money. As another 
has said, "he had a running board bill to pay, and 
nothing to pay it with." By dint of sundry jobs 
here and there, helping Ellis in his store to-day, 
splitting rails for James Short to-morrow, he man- 
aged to keep his head above the waves. His 
friends were firm — no young man ever had truer or 
better ones — but he was of too independent a turn 
to appeal to them or complain of his condition. 
He never at any time abandoned the idea of be- 
coming a lawyer. That was always a spirit which 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. ng 

beckoned him on in the darkest hour of his adver- 
sity. Someone, probably a Democrat who voted 
for him in the preceding fall, recommended him 
to John Calhoun, then surveyor of the county, as 
suitable material for an assistant. This office, in view 
of the prevailing speculation in lands and town lots, 
was the most important and possibly the most profi- 
table in the county. Calhoun, the incumbent, was 
a Yankee and a typical gentleman. He was brave, 
intellectual, self-possessed, and cultivated. He had 
been educated for the law, but never practiced 
much after coming to Illinois— taught school in 
preference. As an instructor he was the popular 
one of his day and age. I attended the school he 
taught when I was a boy, in Springfield, and was in 
later years clerk of the city under his administra- 
tion as Mayor. Lincoln, I know, respected and ad- 
mired him. After Lincoln's removal to Springfield 
they frequently held joint debates on political ques- 
tions. At one time I remember they discussed the 
tariff question in the court house, using up the 
better part of two evenings in the contest. Cal- 
houn was polite, affable, and an honest debater, 
never dodging any question. This made him a 
formidable antagonist in argumentative controversy. 
I have heard Lincoln say that Calhoun gave him 
more trouble in his debates than Douglas ever did, 
because he was more captivating in his manner and 
a more learned man than Douglas. 

But to resume. The recommendation of Lin- 
coln's friends was sufficient to induce Calhoun to 
appoint him one of his deputies. At the time he 



120 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

received notice of his selection by Calhoun, Lincoln 
was out in the woods near New Salem splitting 
rails. A friend named Pollard Simmons, who still 
survives and has related the incident to me, walked 
out to the point where he was working with the 
cheering news. Lincoln, being a Whig and know- 
ing Calhoun's pronounced Democratic tendencies, 
enquired if he had to sacrifice any principle in ac- 
cepting the position. "If I can be perfectly free 
in my political action I will take the office," he 
remarked ; ''but if my sentiments or even expres- 
sion of them is to be abridged in any way I would 
not have it or any other office." A young man ham- 
pered by poverty as Lincoln was at this time, who 
had the courage to deal with public office as he did, 
was certainly made of unalloyed material. No 
wonder in after years when he was defeated by 
Douglas he could inspire his friends by the admoni- 
tion not to "give up after one nor one hundred 
defeats." 

After taking service with Calhoun, Lincoln found 
he had but little if any practical knowledge of sur- 
veying — all that had to be learned. Calhoun fur- 
nished him with books, directing him to study them 
till he felt competent to begin work. He again 
invoked the assistance of Mentor Graham, the 
schoolmaster, who aided him in his efforts at calcu- 
lating the results of surveys and measurements. 
Lincoln was not a mathematician by nature, and 
hence, with him, learning meant labor. Graham's 
daughter is authority for the statement that her 
father and Lincoln frequently sat up till midnight 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 121 

engrossed in calculations, and only ceased when 
her mother drove them out after a fresh sup- 
ply of wood for the fire. Meanwhile Lincoln was 
keeping up his law studies. "He studied to see 
the subject-matter clearly," says Graham, "and to 
express it truly and strongly. I have known him 
to study for hours the best way of three to express 
an idea." He was so studious and absorbed in his 
application at one time, that his friends, according 
to a statement made by one* of them, "noticed 
that he was so emaciated we feared he might 
bring on mental derangement." It was not 
long, however, until he had mastered surveying 
as a study, and then he was sent out to w^ork by his 
superior — Calhoun. It has never been denied that 
his surveys were exact and just, and he was so mani- 
festly fair that he was often chosen to settle dis- 
puted questions of corners and measurements. It 
is worthy of note here that, with all his knowledge 
of lands and their value and the opportunities that 
lay open to him for profitable and safe investments, 
he never made use of the information thus obtained 
from official sources, nor made a single speculation 
on his own account. The high value he placed on 
public office was more fully emphasized when as 
President, in answer to a delegation of gentlemen 
who called to press the claims of one of his warm 
personal friends for an important office, he declined 
on the ground that "he did not regard it as just to 



Henry McHenry, MS., Oct. 5, 1865. 



122 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

the public to pay the debts of personal friendship 
with offices that belonged to the people." 

As surveyor under Calhoun he was sent for at 
one time to decide or locate a disputed corner for 
some persons in the northern part of the county. 
Among others interested was his friend and admirer 
Henry McHenry. "After a good deal of disputing 
we agreed," says the latter, "to send for Lincoln 
and to abide by his decision. He came with com- 
pass, flag-staff, and chain. He stopped with me 
three or four days and surveyed the v/hole section. 
When in the neighborhood of the disputed corner by 
actual survey he called for his staff and driving it 
in the ground at a certain spot said, 'Gentlemen, 
here is the corner.' We dug down into the ground 
at the point indicated and, lo! there we found 
about six or eight inches of the original stake 
sharpened at the end, and beneath which was the 
usual piece of charcoal placed there by Rector the 
surveyor who laid the ground off for the govern- 
ment many years before." So fairly and well had 
the young surveyor done his duty that all parties 
went away completely satisfied. As late as 1865 the 
corner was preserved by a mark and pointed out to 
strangers as an evidence of the young surveyor's 
skill. Russell Godby, mentioned in the earlier 
pages of this chapter, presented to me a certificate of 
survey given to him by Lincoln. It was written Jan- 
uary 14, 1834, and is signed "J. Calhoun, S. S. C, by 
A. Lincoln." "The survey was made by Lincoln," 
says Godby, "and I gave him as pay for his work 
two buckskins, which Hannah Armstrong 'foxed* 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 123 

on his pants so that the briers would not wear 
them out." 

Honors were now crowding thick and fast upon 
him. On May 7, 1833, he was commissioned post- 
master at New Salem, the first office he ever held 
under the Federal Government. The salary was 
proportionate to the amount of business done. 
Whether Lincoln solicited the appointment himself, 
or whether it was given him without the asking, I 
do not know; but certain it is his "administration" 
gave general satisfaction. The mail arrived once a 
week, and we can imgaine the extent of time and 
labor required to distribute it, when it is known that 
*'he carried the office around in his hat." Mr. 
Lincoln used to tell me that when he had a call to 
go to the country to survey a piece of land, he 
placed inside his hat all the letters belonging to 
people in the neighborhood and distributed them 
along the way. He made head-quarters in Samuel 
Hill's store, and there the office may be said to have 
been located, as Hill himself had been postmaster 
before Lincoln. Between the revenue derived from 
the post-office and his income from land surveys 
Lincoln was, in the expressive language of the day, 
"getting along well enough." Suddenly, however, 
smooth sailing ceased and all his prospects of easy 
times ahead were again brought to naught. One 
Van Bergen brought suit against him and obtained 
judgment on one of the notes given in payment of 
the store debt — a relic of the unfortunate partner- 
ship with Berry. His personal effects were levied 
on and sold, his horse and surveying instruments 



124 ^3E LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

going with the rest. But again a friend, one James 
Short, whose favor he had gained, interposed; 
bought in the property and restored it to the hope- 
less young surveyor. It will be seen now what 
kind of friends Lincoln was gaining. The bonds 
he was thus making were destined to stand the 
severest of tests. His case never became so des- 
perate but a friend came out of the darkness to 
relieve him. 

There was always something about Lincoln in 
liis earlier days to encourage his friends. He was 
not only grateful for whatever aid was given him, 
but he always longed to help some one else. He 
had an unfailing disposition to succor the weak and 
the unfortunate, and was always, in his sympathy, 
struggling with the under dog in the fight. He 
was once overtaken when about fourteen miles from 
Springfield by one Chandler, whom he knew slightly, 
and who, having already driven twenty miles, was 
hastening to reach the land office before a certain 
other man who had gone by a dififerent road. 
Chandler explained to Lincoln that he was poor 
and wanted to enter a small tract of land which 
adjoined his, that another man of considerable 
wealth had also determined to have it, and had 
mounted his horse and started for Springfield. 
^'Meanwhile, my neighbors," continued Chandler, 
"collected and advanced me the necessary one hun- 
dred dollars, and now, if I can reach the land office 
first, I can secure the land." Lincoln noticed that 
Chandler's horse was too much fatigued to stand 
fourteen miles more of a forced march, and he there- 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 125 

fore dismounted from his own and turned him 
over to Chandler, saying, "Here's my horse — he is 
fresh and full of grit; there's no time to be lost; 
mount him and put him through. When you reach 
Springfield put him up at Herndon's tavern and I'll 
call and get him." Thus encouraged Chandler 
moved on, leaving Lincoln to follow on the jaded 
animal. He reached Springfield over an hour in 
advance of his rival and thus secured the coveted 
tract of land. By nightfall Lincoln rode leisurely 
into town and was met by the now radiant Chan- 
dler, jubilant over his success. Between the two a 
friendship sprang up which all the political discords 
of twenty-five years never shattered nor strained. 

About this time Lincoln began to extend some- 
what his system — if he really ever had a system in 
anything — of reading. He now began to read the 
writings of Paine, Volney, and Voltaire. A good 
deal of religious skepticism existed at New Salem, 
and there were frequent discussions at the store and 
tavern, in which Lincoln took part. What views he 
entertained on religious questions will be more 
fully detailed in another place. 

No little of Lincoln's influence with the men of 
New Salem can be attributed to his extraordinary 
feats of strength. By an arrangement of ropes and 
straps, harnessed about his hips, he was enabled one 
day at the mill to astonish a crowd of village celeb- 
rities by lifting a box of stones weighing near a 
thousand pounds. There is no fiction either, as sug- 
gested by some of his biographers, in the story that 
he lifted a barrel of whiskey from the ground and 



126 ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ LINCOLN. 

drank from the bung; but in performing this latter 
almost incredible feat he did not stand erect and 
elevate the barrel, but squatted down and lifted it 
to his knees, rolling it over until his mouth came 
opposite the bung. His strength, kindness of man- 
ner, love of fairness and justice, his original and 
unique sayings, his power of mimicry, his perse- 
verance — all made a combination rarely met with 
on the frontier. Nature had burnt him in her 
holy fire, and stamped him with the seal of her 
greatness. 

In the summer of 1834 Lincoln determined to 
make another race for the legislature; but this 
time he ran distinctly as a Whig. He made, it is 
presumed, the usual number of speeches, but as the 
art of newspaper reporting had not reached the 
perfection it has since attained, we are not favored 
with even the substance of his efforts on the stump. 
I have Lincoln's word for it that it was more of a 
hand-shaking campaign than anything else. Rowan 
Herndon relates that he came to his house during 
harvest, when there were a large number of men at 
work in the field. He was introduced to them, but 
they did not hesitate to apprize him of their esteem 
for a man who could labor; and their admiration for 
a candidate for office was gauged somewhat by the 
amount of work he could do. Learning these facts, 
Lincoln took hold of a cradle, and handling it with 
ease and remarkable speed, soon distanced those 
who undertook to follow him. The men were satis- 
fied, and it is presumed he lost no votes in that 
crowd. One Dr. Barrett, seeing Lincoln, enquired 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 127 

of the latter's friends: "Can't the party raise any 
better material than that?" but after hearing his 
speech the doctor's opinion was considerably al- 
tered, for he declared that Lincoln filled him with 
amazement; **that he knew more than all of the 
other candidates put together." The election took 
place in August. Lincoln's friend, John T. Stuart, 
was also a candidate on the legislative ticket. He 
encouraged Lincoln's canvas in every way, even at 
the risk of sacrificing his own chances. But both 
were elected. The four successful candidates were 
Dawson, who received 1390 votes,* Lincoln 1376, 
Carpenter 1170, and Stuart 1164. 

At last Lincoln had been elected to the legislature, 
and by a very flattering majority. In order, as he 
himself said, "to make a decent appearance -in the 
legislature," he had to borrow money to buy suit- 
able clothing and to maintain his new dignity. 
Coleman Smoot, one of his friends, advanced him 
"two hundred dollars, which he returned, relates 
the generous Smoot, according to promise." Here 
we leave our rising young statesman, to take up 
a dift'erent but very interesting period of his his- 
tory. 



* In all former biographies of Lincoln, including the Nicolay 
and Hay history in the "Century Magazine," Dawson's vote is 
fixed at 1370, and Lincoln is thereby made to lead the ticket; but 
in the second issue of the Sangamon Journal after the election 
— August 16, 1834 — the count is corrected, and Dawson's vote 
is increased to 1390. Dr. A. "W. French, of Springfield, is the 
possessor of an official return of the votes cast "at the New Salem 
precinct, made out in the handwriting of Lincoln, which also 
gives Dawson's vote at 1390. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Since the days when in Indiana Lincoln sat on 
the river's bank with Httle Kate Roby, dangling his 
bare feet in the w^ater, there has been no hint in 
these pages of tender relations with any one of the 
opposite sex. Now we approach in timely order 
the ''grand passion" of his life — a romance of 
much reality, the memory of which threw a melan- 
choly shade over the remainder of his days. For 
the first time our hero falls in love. The courtship 
with Anne Rutledge and her untimely death form 
the saddest page in Mr. Lincoln's history. I am 
aware that most of his biographers have taken issue 
with me on this phase of Mr. Lincoln's life. 
Arnold says : ''The picture has been somevv'hat too 
highly colored, and the story made rather too 
tragic." Dr. Holland and others omit the subject 
altogether, while the most recent biography — the 
admirable history by my friends Nicolay and Hay 
— devotes but five lines to it. I knew Miss Rut- 
ledge myself, as well as her father and other mem- 
bers of the family, and have been personally ac- 
quainted with every one of the score or more of 
witnesses whom I at one time or another inter- 
viewed on this delicate subject. From my own 
knowledge and the information thus obtained, I 
therefore repeat, that the memory of Anne Rut- 

128 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 129 

ledge was the saddest chapter in Mr. Lincoln's 

life.* 

James Rutledge, the father of this interesting 
girl, was one of the founders of New Salem, having 
come there from Kentucky in 1829. He was born 
in South Carolina and belonged to the noted Rut- 
ledge family of that State. I knew him as early as 
1S33, and have often shared the hospitality of his 
home. My father was a politician and an extensive 
stock dealer in that early day, and he and Mr. Rut- 
ledge were great friends. The latter was a man of 
no little force of character; those who knew him 
best loved him the most. Like other Southern peo- 
ple he was warm,— almost to impulsiveness,— social, 
and generous. His hospitality, an inherited qual- 
ity that flashed with him before he was born, 
developed by contact with the brave and broad- 
minded people whom he met in Illinois. Besides 
his business interests in the store and mill at New 
Salem, he kept the tavern where Lincoln came to 
board in 1833. His family, besides himself and 
wife, consisted of nine children, three of whom were 
born in Kentucky, the remaining six in Illinois. 
Anne, the subject of this chapter, was the third 
child. She v/as a beautiful girl, and by her win- 
ning ways attached people to her so firmly that she 
soon became the most popular young lady in the 
village. She was quick of apprehension, industri- 



* In a letter dated Dec. 4, 1866, one of Miss Rutledge's broth- 
ers writes : "When he first came to New Salem and up to the day 
of Anne's death Mr. Lincoln was all life and animation. He 
seemed to see the bright side of every picture." 



130 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

ous, and an excellent housekeeper. She had a 
moderate education, but was not cultured except 
by contrast with those around her. One of her 
strong points was her womanly skill. She was dex- 
terous in the use of the needle — an accomplishment 
of far more value in that day than all the acquire- 
ments of art in china painting and hammered brass 
are in this — and her needle-work was the wonder 
of the day. At every ''quilting" Anne was a 
necessary adjunct, and her nimble fingers drove the 
needle more swiftly than anyone's else. Lincoln 
used to escort her to and from these quilting-bees, 
and on one occasion even went into the house — 
where men were considered out of place — and sat 
by her side as she worked on the quilt. 

He whispered into her ear the old, old story. 
Her heart throbbed and her soul was thrilled with 
a joy as old as the world itself. Her fingers 
momentarily lost their skill. In her ecstasy she 
made such irregular and uneven stitches that the 
older and more sedate women noted it, and the 
owner of the quilt, until a few years ago still re- 
taining it as a precious souvenir, pointed out the 
memorable stitches to such persons as visited her. 

L. M. Greene, who remembered Anne well, says, 
*'She was amiable and of exquisite beauty, and her 
intellect was quick, deep, and philosophic as well as 
brilliant. She had a heart as gentle and kind as 
an angel, and full of love and sympathy. Her sweet 
and angelic nature was noted by every one who met 
her. She was a woman worthy of Lincoln's love." 
This is a little overstated as to beauty — Greene 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 131 

writes as if he too had been in love with her — but 
is otherwise nearly correct. 

''Miss Rutledge," says a lady* who knew her, 
"had auburn hair, blue eyes, fair complexion. 
She was pretty, slightly slender, but in everything 
a good hearted young woman. She was about five 
feet two inches high, and weighed in the neighbor- 
hood of a hundred and twenty pounds. She was 
beloved by all who knevr her. She died as it were 
of grief. In speaking of her death and her grave 
Lincoln once said to me. *My heart lies buried 
there.' " 

Before narrating the details of Lincoln's courtship 
with Miss Rutledge, it is proper to mention briefly 
a few facts that occurred before their attachment be- 
gan. 

About the same time that Lincoln drifted into 
New Salem there came in from the Eastern States 
John McNeil, a young man of enterprise and great 
activity, seeking his fortune in the West. He went 
to work at once, and within a short time had accu- 
mulated by commendable effort a comfortable 
amount of property. Within three years he owned 
a farm, and a half interest with Samuel Hill in the 
leading store. He had good capacity for business, 
and was a valuable addition to that already preten- 
tious village — New^ Salem. It was while living at 
James Cameron's house that this plucky and indus- 
trious young business man first saw Anne Rut- 
ledge. At that time she was attending the school 



* Mrs. Hardin Bale. 



132 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

of Mentor Graham, a pedagogue of local renown 
whose name is frequently met with in these pages, 
and who flourished in and around New Salem from 
1829 to 1860. McNeil fell deeply in love with the 
school-girl — she was then only seventeen — and paid 
her the usual unremitting attentions young lovers 
of that age had done before him and are still doing 
today. His partner in the store, Samuel Hill, a 
young man of equal force of character, who after- 
wards amassed a comfortable fortune, and also 
wielded no little influence as a local politician, laid 
siege to the heart of this same attractive maiden, 
but he yielded up the contest early. Anne rejected 
him, and he dropped from the race. McNeil had 
clear sailing from this time forward. He was 
acquiring property and money day by day. As one 
of the pioneers puts it, "Men were honest then, 
and paid their debts at least once a year. The 
merchant surrounded by a rich country suffered lit- 
tle from competition. As he placed his goods on 
the shelf he added an advance of from seventy-five 
to one hundred and fifty per cent over cost price, 
and thus managed to get along." After "manag- 
ing" thus for several years, McNeil, having disposed 
of his interest in the store to Hill, determined to 
return to New York, his native State, for a visit. 
He had accumulated up to this time, as near as we 
can learn, ten or possibly twelve thousand dollars. 
Before leaving he made to Anne a singular reve- 
lation. He told her the name McNeil was an 
assumed one; that his real name was McNamar. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 133 

*1 left behind me in New York," he said, *'my 
parents and brothers and sisters. They are poor, 
and were in more or less need when I left them in 
1829. I vowed that I Avould come West, make a 
fortune, and go back to help them. I am going to 
start now and intend, if I can, to bring them with 
me on my return to Illinois and place them on my 
farm." He expressed a sense of deep satisfaction 
in being able to clear up all mysteries which might 
have formed in the mind of her to whom he con- 
fided his love. He would keep nothing, he said, 
from her. They were engaged to be married, and 
she should know it all. The change of his name 
was occasioned by the fear that if the family in 
New York had known where he was they would 
have settled down on him, and before he could have 
accumulated any property would have sunk him 
beyond recovery. Now, however, he was in a con- 
dition to help them, and he felt overjoyed at the 
thought. As soon as the journey to New York 
could be made he would return. Once again in 
New Salem he and his fair one could consummate 
the great event to which they looked forward with 
undisguised joy and unbounded hope. Thus he 
explained to Anne the purpose of his journey — a 
story with some remarkable features, all of which 
she fully believed. 

''She would have believed it all the same if it had 
been ten times as incredible. A wise man would 
have rejected it with scorn, but the girl's instinct was 
a better guide, and McNamar proved to be all that 



134 ^^^ ^^^^ OF LINCOLN. 

he said he was, although poor Anne never saw the 
proof which others got of it."* 

At last McNamar, mounting an old horse that 
had participated in the Black Hawk war, began his 
journey. In passing through Ohio he became ill 
with a fever. For almost a month he was confined 
to his room, and a portion of the time was uncon- 
scious. As he approached a return to good health 
he grew nervous over the delay in his trip. He 
told no one around him his real name, destination, 
or business. He knew how his failure to write to 
New Salem would be construed, and the resulting 
irritation gave way to a feeling of desperation. In 
plainer language, he concluded it was ''all up with 
him now." Meanwhile a different view of the mat- 
ter was taken by Miss Rutledge. Her friends 
encouraged the idea of cruel desertion. The 
change of McNeil to McNamar had wrought in 
their minds a change of sentiment. Some con- 
tended that he had undoubtedly committed a crime 
in his earlier days, and for years had rested secure 
from apprehension under the shadow of an assumed 
name; while others with equal assurance whispered 
in the unfortunate girl's ear the old story of a rival 
in her affections. Anne's lady friends, strange to 
relate, did more to bring about a discordant feeling 
than all others. Women are peculiar creatures. 
They love to nettle and mortify one another; and 
when one of their own sex has fallen, how little 
sympathy they seem to have ! But under all this 

* Lamon, p. 161. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 135 

fire, in the face of all these insidious criticisms, Anne 
remained firm. She had faith, and bided her time. 
McNamar, after much vexatious delay, finally 
reached his birthplace in New York, finding 
his father in the decline of years and health. 
He provided for his immediate needs, and by his 
assiduous attentions undertook to atone for the 
years of his neglect; but all to no purpose. The 
old gentleman gradually faded from the world, 
and early one winter morning crossed the great 
river. McNamar was thus left to settle up the 
few unfinished details of his father's estate, and to 
provide for the pressing needs of the family. His 
detention necessitated a letter to Anne, explaining 
the nature and cause of the delay. Other letters 
followed; but each succeeding one growing less 
ardent in tone, and more formal in phraseology than 
its predecessor, Anne began to lose faith. Had 
his love gradually died away like the morning wind? 
was a question she often asked herself. She had 
stood firm under fire before, but now her heart grew 
sick with hope deferred. At last the correspondence 
ceased altogether. 

At this point we are favored with the introduc- 
tion of the ungainly Lincoln, as a suitor for the 
hand of Miss Rutledge. Lincoln had learned of 
McNamar's strange conduct, and conjecturing 
that all the silken ties that bound the two 
together had been sundered, ventured to step in 
himself. He had seen the young lady when a mere 
girl at Mentor Graham's school, and he, no doubt, 
then had formed a high opinion of her qualities. 



136 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

But he was too bashful, as his friend Ellis declares, 
to tell her of it. No doubt, when he began to pay 
her attentions she was the most attractive young 
lady whom up to that time he had ever met. She 
was not only modest and winning in her ways, and 
full of good, womanly common-sense, but withal re- 
fined, in contrast with the uncultured people who 
surrounded both herself and Lincoln. "She had a 
secret, too, and a sorrow, — the unexplained and 
painful absence of McNamar, — which, no doubt, 
made her all the more interesting to him whose 
spirit was often even more melancholy than her 
own.'' 

In after years, McNamar himself, describing her 
to me, said : "Miss Rutledge was a gentle, amiable 
maiden, without any of the airs of your city belles, 
but winsome and comely withal; a blonde in com- 
plexion, with golden hair, cherry-red lips, and a 
bonny blue eye. As to her literary attainments, she 
undoubtedly was as classic a scholar as Mr. Lincoln. 
She had at the time she met him, I believe, at- 
tended a literary institution at Jacksonville, in com- 
pany with her brother." 

McNamar seems to have considered Lincoln's 
bashfulness as proof against the alluring charms of 
Miss Rutledge or anybody else, for he continues : 

"Mr. Lincoln was not to my knowledge paying 
particular attention to any of the young ladies of 
my acquaintance when I left for my home in New 
York. There was no rivalry between us on that 
score ; on the contrary, I had every reason to believe 
him my warm, personal friend. But by-and-by I 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 137 

was left so far behind in the race I did not deem my 
chances worthy of notice. From this time forward 
he made rapid strides to that imperishable fame 
which justly fills a world." 

Lincoln began to court Miss Rutledge in dead 
earnest. Like David Copperfield, he soon realized 
that he was in danger of becoming deeply in love, and 
as he approached the brink of the pit he trembled 
lest he should indeed fall in. As he pleaded and 
pressed his cause the Rutledges and all New Salem 
encouraged his suit. McNamar's unexplained ab- 
sence and apparent neglect furnished outsiders 
with all the arguments needed to encourage Lincoln 
and convince Anne. Although the attachment was 
growing and daily becoming an intense and mutual 
passion, the young lady remained firm and almost 
inflexible. She was passing through another fire. 
A long struggle with her feelings followed ; but at 
length the inevitable moment came. She consented 
to have Lincoln, provided he gave her time to write 
to McNamar and obtain his release from her pledge. 
The slow-moving mails carried her tender letter to 
New York. Days and weeks — which to the ardent 
Lincoln must have seemed painfully long — passed, 
but the answer never . came. In a half-hearted way 
she turned to Lincoln, and her looks told him that 
he had won. She accepted his proposal. Now 
that they were engaged he told her what she already 
knew, that he was poverty itself. She must grant 
him time to gather up funds to live on until he had 
completed his law studies. After this trifling delay 
"nothing on God's footstool," argued the em- 



138 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

phatic lover, could keep them apart. To this the 
thoughtful Anne consented. To one of her 
brothers, she said : "As soon as his studies are com- 
pleted we are to be married." But the ghost of 
another love would often rise unbidden before her. 
Within her bosom raged the conflict which finally 
undermined her health. Late in the summer she 
took to her bed. A fever was burning in her head. 
Day by day she sank, until all hope was banished. 
During the latter days of her sickness, her physician 
had forbidden visitors to enter her room, prescribing 
absolute quiet. But her brother relates that she 
kept enquiring for Lincoln so continuously, at times 
demanding to see him, that the family at last sent 
for him. On his arrival at her bedside the door was 
closed and he was left alone with her. What was 
said, what vows and revelations were made during 
this sad interview, were known only to him and the 
dying girl. A few days afterward she became un- 
conscious and remained so until her death on the 
25th day of August, 1835. She was buried in what 
is known as the Concord grave-yard, about seven 
miles north-west of the town of Petersburg.* 

The most astonishing and sad sequel to this court- 



* "I have heard mother say that Anne would frequently sing 
for Lincoln's benefit. She ha^d a clear, ringing voice. Early in 
her illness he called, and she sang' a hymn for which he always 
expressed a great preference. It begins : 

'Vain man, thy fond pursuits forbear.' 

You will find it in one of the standard hymn-books. It was like- 
wise the last thing she ever sung." — Letter, John M. Rutledge, 
MS., Nov. 25, 1866. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 139 

ship was the disastrous effect of ^liss Rutledge's 
death on Mr. Lincoln's mind. It operated strangely 
on one of his calm and stoical make-up. As he re- 
turned from the visit to the bedside of jNIiss Rut- 
ledge, he stopped at the house of a friend, who re- 
lates that his face showed signs of no little mental 
agony. "He was very much distressed," is the 
language of this friend, "and I was not surprised 
when it was rumored subsequently that his rea- 
son was in danger." One of Miss Rutledge's 
brothers* says: "The effect upon Mr. Lincoln's 
mind was terrible. He became plunged in despair, 
and many of his friends feared that reason would 
desert her throne. His extraordinary emotions 
were regarded as strong evidence of the existence 
of the tenderest relations between himself and the 
deceased." The truth is Mr. Lincoln was strangely 
wrought up over the sad ending of the affair. He 
had fits of great mental depression, and wandered 
up and down the river and into the woods woefully 
abstracted — at times in the deepest distress. If, 
when we read what the many credible persons who 
knew him at the time tell us, we do not con- 
clude that he was deranged, we must admit that 
he walked on that sharp and narrow line which di- 
vides sanity from insanity. To one friend he com- 
plained that the thought "that the snows and rains 
fall upon her grave filled him with indescribable 
grief."t He was watched with especial vigilance 



* R. B. Rutledge, MS., letter, Oct. 21, 1866. 
t Letter, Wm. Greene, MS., May 29, 1865. 



•^40 ^-^^ ^^^^ ^^ LINCOLN. 

during damp, stormy days, under the belief that 
dark and gloomy weather might produce such a de- 
pression of spirits as to induce him to take his own 
life. His condition finally became so alarming, his 
friends consulted together and sent him to the 
house of a kind friend, Bowlin Greene, who lived 
in a secluded spot hidden by the hills, a mile south 
of town. Here he remained for some weeks under 
the care and ever watchful eye of this noble friend, 
who gradually brought him back to reason, or at 
least a realization of his true condition. In the 
years that followed Mr. Lincoln never forgot the 
kindness of Greene through those weeks of sufifer- 
ing and peril. In 1842, when the latter died, and 
Lincoln w^as selected by the Masonic lodge to de- 
liver the funeral oration, he broke down in the midst 
of his address. "His voice was choked with deep 
emotion ; he stood a few moments while his lips 
quivered in the effort to form the words of fervent 
praise he sought to utter, and the tears ran down 
his yellow and shrivelled cheeks. Every heart was 
hushed at the spectacle. After repeated efforts he 
found it impossible to speak, and strode away, bit- 
terly sobbing, to the widow's carriage and was 
driven from the scene." 

It was shortly after this that Dr. Jason Duncan 
placed in Lincoln's hands a poem called "Immor- 
tality." The piece starts out with the line, "Oh! 
why should the spirit of mortal be proud." Lin- 
coln's love for this poem has certainly made it im- 
mortal. He committed these lines to memory, and 
any reference to or mention of Miss Rutledge 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 141 

would suggest them, as if "to celebrate a grief 
which lay with continual heaviness on his heart." 
There is no question that from this time forward 
Mr. Lincoln's spells of melancholy became more 
intense than ever. In fact a tinge of this desper- 
ate feeling of sadness followed him to Springfield. 
He himself was somewhat superstitious about it, 
and in 1840-41 wrote to Dr. Drake, a celebrated 
physician in Cincinnati, describing his mental condi- 
tion in a long letter. Dr. Drake responded, saying 
substantially, "I cannot prescribe in your case 
without a personal interview." Joshua F. Speed, 
to whom Lincoln showed the letter addressed to 
Dr. Drake, writing to me from Louisville, Novem- 
ber 30, 1866, says: "I think he (Lincoln) must have 
informed Dr. Drake of his early love for Miss 
Rutledge, as there was a part of the letter which he 
would not read." It is shown by the declaration 
of Mr. Lincoln himself made to a fellow member* 
of the Legislature within two years after Anne 
Rutledge's death that "although he seemed to 
others to enjoy life rapturously, yet when alone 
he was so overcome by mental depression he never 
dared to carry a pocket knife." 

It may not be amiss to suggest before I pass 
from mention of McNamar that, true to his prom- 
ise, he drove into New Salem in the fall of 1835 
with his mother and brothers and sisters. They 
had come through from New York in a wagon, with 
all their portable goods. Anne Rutledge had 



Robert L. Wilson, MS., letter, Feb. 10, 1866. 



142 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

meanwhile died, and McNamar could only muse in 
silence over the fading visions of "what might have 
been." On his arrival he met Lincoln, who, with 
the memory of their mutual friend, now dead, con- 
stantly before him, "seemed desolate and sorely 
distressed." The little acre of ground in Concord 
cemetery contained the form of his first love, rudely 
torn from him, and the great world, throbbing with 
life but cold and heartless, lay spread before him. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Before taking up an account of Lincoln's entry 
into the Legislature, which, following strictly the 
order of time, properly belongs here, I beg to di- 
gress long enough to narrate what I have gathered 
relating to another courtship — an affair of the heart 
which culminated in a sequel as amusing as the one 
with Anne Rutledge was sad. I experienced much 
difficulty in obtaining the particulars of this court- 
ship. After no little effort I finally located and 
corresponded with the lady participant herself, who 
in 1866 furnished me with Lincoln's letters and her 
own account of the affair, requesting the suppres- 
sion of her name and residence. Since then, how- 
ever, she has died, and her children have not only 
consented to a publication of the history, but have 
furnished me recently with more facts and an ex- 
cellent portrait of their mother made shortly after 
her refusal of Lincoln's hand. 

Mary S. Owens — a native of Green county, Ken- 
tucky, born September 29, 1808 — first became ac- 
quainted with Lincoln while on a visit to a sister, 
the wife of Bennet Able, an early settler in the coun- 
try about New Salem. Lincoln was a frequent vis- 
itor at the house of Able, and a warm friend of the 
family. During the visit of Miss Owens in 1833, 

148 



144 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

though only remaining a month, she lingered 
long enough to make an impression on Lincoln; 
but returned to Kentucky and did not reappear in 
New Salem till 1836. Meanwhile Anne Rutledge 
had died, and Lincoln's eyes began to wander after 
the dark-haired visitor from Kentucky. Miss 
Owens differed from Miss Rutledge in early educa- 
tion and the advantages of wealth. She had re- 
ceived an excellent education, her father being one 
of the wealthiest and most influential men of his 
time and locality. A portion of her schooling was 
obtained in a Catholic convent, though in religious 
faith she was a Baptist. According to a description 
furnished me by herself she "had fair skin, deep 
blue eyes, and dark curling hair; height five feet, 
five inches; weight about a hundred and fifty 
pounds." She was good-looking in girlhood; by 
many esteemed handsome, but became fleshier as 
she grew older. At the time of her second visit 
she reached New Salem on the day of the Presiden- 
tial election, passing the polls where the men had 
congregated, on the way to her sister's house. One 
man in the crowd who saw her then was impressed 
with her beauty. Years afterwards, in relating the 
incident,* he wrote me : 

"She was tall, portly, had large blue eyes and the 
finest trimmings I ever saw. She was jovial, social, 
loved wit and humor, had a liberal English educa- 
tion, and was considered wealthy. None of the 
poets or romance writers have ever given us a pict- 
ure of a heroine so beautiful as a good description 
of Miss Owens in 1836 would be." 

* Li. M. Greene. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 145 

A lady friend* says she was "handsome, truly 
handsome, matronly-looking, over ordinary size in 
height and weight." 

A gentleman| who saw her a few years before her 
death describes her as "a nervous, muscular woman, 
very intellectual, with a forehead massive and angu- 
lar, square, prominent, and broad." 

At the time of her advent into the society of New 
Salem she was polished in her manners, pleasing in 
her address, and attractive in many ways. She had 
a little dash of coquetry in her intercourse with 
that class of young men who arrogated to them- 
selves claims of superiority, but she never yielded to 
this disposition to an extent that would willingly 
lend encouragement to an honest suitor sincerely 
desirous of securing her hand, when she felt she 
could not in the end yield to a proposal of marriage 
if he should make the offer. She was a good con- 
versationalist and a splendid reader, very few per- 
sons being found to equal her in this accomplish- 
ment. She was light-hearted and cheery in her 
disposition, kind and considerate for those with 
whom she was thrown in contact. 

One of Miss Owens' descendants is authority for 
the statement that Lincoln had boasted that "if 
Mary Owens ever returned to Illinois a second time 
he would marry her;" that a report of this came to 
her ears, whereupon she left her Kentucky home 
with a pre-determination to show him if she met 

* Mrs. Hardin Bale. t Johnson G. Greene. 



146 "^HE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

him that she was not to be caught simply by the 
asking. On this second visit Lincoln paid her 
more marked attention than before, and his affec- 
tions became more and more enlisted in her behalf. 
During the earlier part of their acquaintance, fol- 
lowing the natural bent of her temperament she 
was pleasing and entertaining to him. Later on he 
discovered himself seriously interested in the blue- 
eyed Kentuckian, whom he had really under-esti- 
mated in his preconceived opinions of her. In the 
meantime she too had become interested, having 
discovered the sterling qualities of the young man 
who was paying her such devoted attention; yet 
while she admired she did not love him. He was 
ungainly and angular in his physical make-up, and 
to her seemed deficient in the nicer and more deli- 
cate attentions which she felt to be due from the 
man whom she had pictured as an ideal husband. 
He had given her to understand that she had 
greatly charmed him; but he was not himself 
certain that he could make her the husband with 
whom he thought she would be most happy. Later 
on by word and letter he told her so. His honesty 
of purpose showed itself in all his efforts to win her 
hand. He told her of his poverty, and while advis- 
ing her that life with him meant to her who had 
been reared in comfort and plenty, great privation 
and sacrifice, yet he wished to secure her as a wife. 
She, however, felt that she did not entertain for him 
the same feeling that he professed for her and that 
she ought to entertain before accepting him, and so 
declined his ofTer. Judging from his letters alone 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 147 

it has been supposed by some that she, remember- 
ing the rumor she had heard of his determination 
to marry her, and not being fully certain of the 
sincerity of his purposes, may have purposely left 
him in the earlier stages of his courtship somewhat 
in uncertainty. Later on, however, when by his 
manner and repeated announcement to her that his 
hand and heart were at her disposal, he demon- 
strated the honesty and sincerity of his intentions, 
she declined his offer kindly but with no uncertain 
meaning. 

The first letter I received from Mrs. Vineyard — 
for she was married to Jesse Vineyard, March 27, 
1841— was written at Weston, Mo., May 1, 1866. 
Among other things she says : ''After quite a 
struggle with my feelings I have at last decided to 
send you the letters in my possession written by 
Mr. Lincoln, believing as I do that you are a gen- 
tleman of honor and will faithfully abide by all 
you have said. My associations with your lamented 
friend were in Menard county whilst visiting a 
sister who then resided near' Petersburg. I have 
learned that my maiden name is now in your pos- 
session ; and you have ere this, no doubt, been in- 
formed that I am a native Kentuckian." 

The letters written by Lincoln not revealing 
enough details of the courtship, I prepared a list of 
questions for the lady to answer in order that the 
entire history of their relations might be clearly 
shown. I perhaps pressed her too closely in such a 
delicate matter, for she responded in a few days as 
follows : 



148 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

''Weston, Mo., May 22, 1866. 
*'Mr. W. H. Herndon, 

**My Dear Sir : Really, you catechise me in 
true lawyer style ; but I feel you will have the 
goodness to excuse me if I decline answering all 
your questions in detail, being well assured that few 
women would have ceded as much as I have under 
all the circumstances. 

"You say you have heard w^hy our acquaintance 
terminated as it did. I too have heard the same 
bit of gossip; but I never used the remark which 
Madame Rumor says I did to Mr. Lincoln. I think 
I did on one occasion say to my sister, who was 
very anxious for us to be married, that I thought 
Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which 
make up the chain of woman's happiness — at least 
it was so in my case. Not that I believed it pro- 
ceeded from a lack of goodness of heart ; but his 
training had been dififerent from mine ; hence there 
was not that congeniality which would otherwise 
have existed. 

"From his own showing you perceive that his 
heart and hand were at my disposal ; and I suppose 
that my feelings were not sufficiently enlisted to 
have the matter consummated. About the begin- 
ning of the year 1838 I left Illinois, at which time 
our acquaintance and correspondence ceased, with- 
out ever again being renewed. 

"My father, who resided in Green county, Ken- 
tucky, was a gentleman of considerable means ; and 
I am persuaded that few persons placed a higher 
estimate on education than he did. 

"Respectfully yours, 

"Mary S. Vineyard.'" 

The reference to Lincoln's deficiency "in those 
little links which make up the chain of woman's 
happiness" is of no little significance. It proved 



THE LIFE OF Ln\COLN. 149 

that his training had indeed been different from 
hers. In a short time I again wrote Mrs. Vineyard 
to enquire as to the truth of a story current in New 
Salem, that one day as she and Mrs. BowHn Greene 
were cHmbing up the hill to Abie's house they 
were joined by Lincoln; that Mrs. Greene was 
obliged to carry her child, a fat baby boy, to the 
summit; that Lincoln strolled carelessly along, 
offering no assistance to the woman who bent 
under the load. Thereupon Miss Owens, censuring 
him for his neglect, reminded him that in her 
estimation he would not make a good husband. In 
due time came her answer : 

"Weston, Mo., July 22, 1866. 
''Mr. W. H. Herndon : 

"Dear Sir: I do not think you are pertina- 
cious in asking the question relative to old Mrs. 
Bowlin Greene, because I wish to set you right on 
that question. Your information, no doubt, came 
through my cousin, Mr. Gaines Greene, who visited 
us last winter. Whilst here, he was laughing at me 
about Mr. Lincoln, and among other things spoke 
about the circumstance in connection with Mrs. 
Greene and child. My impression is now that I 
tacitly admitted it, for it was a season of trouble 
with me, and I gave but little heed to the matter. 
We never had any hard feelings towards each other 
that I know of. On no occasion did I say to Mr. 
Lincoln that I did not believe he would make a 
kind husband, because he did not tender his ser- 
vices to Mrs. Greene in helping of her carry her 
babe. As I said to you in a former letter, I 
thought him lacking in smaller attentions. One 
circumstance presents itself just now to my mind's 
eye. There was a company of us going to Uncle 



150 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Billy Greene's. Mr. Lincoln was riding with me, 
and we had a very bad branch to cross. The other 
gentlemen were very officious in seeing that their 
partners got safely over. We were behind, he 
riding in, never looking back to see how I got 
along. When I rode up beside him, I remarked, 
'You are a nice fellow ! I suppose you did not care 
whether my neck was broken or not.' He laugh- 
ingly replied (I suppose by way of compliment), that 
he knew I was plenty smart to take care of my- 
self. 

"In many things he was sensitive almost to a 
fault. He told me of an incident : that he was 
crossing a prairie one day and saw before him, *a 
hog mired down,' to use his own language. He 
was rather 'fixed up,' and he resolved that he .would 
pass on without looking at the shoat. After he 
had gone by, he said the feeling was irresistible; 
and he had to look back, and the poor thing seemed 
to say wistfully. There now, my last hope is gone;' 
that he deliberately got down and relieved it from 
its difficulty. 

"In many things we were congenial spirits. In 
politics we saw eye to eye, though since then we 
differed as widely as the South is from the North. 
But methinks I hear you say, 'Save me from a 
political woman !' So say I. 

"The last message I ever received from him was 
about a year after we parted in Illinois. Mrs. Able 
visited Kentucky, and he said to her in Springfield, 
'Tell your sister that I think she was a great fool 
because she did not stay here and marry me.' 
Characteristic of the man ! 

"Respectfully yours, 

"Mary S. Vineyard.'^ 

We have thus been favored with the lady's side 
of this case, and it is but fair that we should hear 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. ' 151 

the testimony of her honest but ungainly suitor. 
Fortunately for us and for history we have his view 
of the case in a series of letters which have been 
preserved with zealous care by the lady's family.* 
The first letter was written from Vandalia, Decem- 
ber 13, 1836, where the Legislature to which he 
belonged was in session. After reciting the 
progress of legislation and the flattering prospect 
that then existed for the removal of the seat of 
government to Springfield, he gets down to personal 
matters by apprising her of his illness for a few 
days, coupled with the announcement that he is 
mortified by daily trips to the post-office in quest 
of her letter, which it seemed never would arrive. 
"You see," he complains, **I am mad about that 
old letter yet. I don't like to risk you again. I'll 
try you once more, anyhow." Further along in 
the course of the missive, he says : "You recollect, 
I mentioned at the outset of this letter, that I had 
been unwell. That is the fact, though I believe I 
am about wxU now ; but that, with other things I 
cannot account for, have conspired, and have gotten 
my spirits so low that I feel that I would rather 
be in any place in the world than here. I really 
cannot endure the thought of staying here ten 
weeks. Write back as soon as you get this, and if 
possible, say something that will please me; for 
really, I have not been pleased since I left you. 



* The copies of these letters were carefully made by Mr. "Weik 
from the originals, now in the possession of B. R. Vineyard, St. 
Joseph, Mo. 



152 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

This letter is so dry and stupid," he mournfully 
concludes, "that I am ashamed to send it, but with 
my present feelings I cannot do any better." 

After the adjournment of the Legislature he 
returned to Springfield, from which point it was a 
matter of easy driving to reach New Salem, where 
his lady-love was sojourning, and where he could 
pay his addresses in person. It should be borne in 
mind that he had by this time removed to Spring- 
field, the county seat, and entered on the practice of 
the law. In the gloom resulting from lack of funds 
and the dim prospects for business, he found time to 
communicate with the friend whose case was con- 
stantly uppermost in his mind. Here is one char- 
acteristic letter : 



''Springfield, May 7, 1837. 
Friend Mary: 

"I have commenced two letters to send you 
before this, both of which displeased me before I 
got half done, and so I tore them up. The first I 
thought wasn't serious enough, and the second was 
on the other extreme. I shall send this, turn out 
as it may. 

'This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull 
business after all — at least it is so to me. I am 
quite as lonesome here as [I] ever was anywhere in 
my life. I have been spoken to by but one woman 
since I've been here, and should not have been by 
her if she could have avoided it. I've never been 
to church yet, and probably shall not be soon. I 
stay away because I am conscious I should not 
know how to behave myself. I am often think- 
ing of what we said of your coming to live at 
Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satis- 



^- THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 153 

fied. There is a great deal of flourishing about in 
carriages here, which it would be your doom 
to see without sharing in it. You would have to 
be poor without the means of hiding your poverty. 
Do you believe you could bear that patiently? 
Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, 
should anyone ever do so, it is my intention to do 
all in my power to make her happy and contented, 
and there is nothing I can imagine that would make 
me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I 
know I should be much happier with you than 
the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discon- 
tent in you. 

"What you have said to me may have been in 
jest or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then 
let it be forgotten ; if otherwise I much wish you 
would think seriously before you decide. For my 
part I have already decided. What I have said I 
will most positively abide by, provided you wish it. 
My opinion is you had better not do it. You have 
not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be 
more severe than you imagine. I know you are 
capable of thinking correctly on any subject ; and 
if you deliberate maturely upon this before you 
decide, then I am willing to abide your decision. 

"You must write me a good long letter after you 
get this. You have nothing else to do, and though 
it might not seem interesting to you after you have 
written it, it would be a good deal of company in 
this busy wilderness. Tell your sister I don't want 
to hear any more about selling out and moving. 
That gives me the hypo whenever I think of it. 

"Yours, etc. 

'^^LlNCOLN.'' 

Very few if any men can be found who in fond 
pursuit of their love would present their case 
voluntarily in such an unfavorable light. In one 



154 '^^^ ^^^^ ^F LINCOLN. 

breath he avows his affection for the lady whose 
image is constantly before him, and in the next 
furnishes her reasons why she ought not to marry 
him ! During the w^arm, dry summer months he 
kept up the siege without apparent diminution of 
zeal. He was as assiduous as ever, and in August 
was anxious to force a decision. On the 16th he had 
a meeting with her which terminated much like 
a drawn battle — at least it seems to have afforded 
him but little encouragement, for on his return to 
Springfield he immediately indulged in an epistolary 
effusion stranger than any that preceded it. 

"Friend Mary: 

"You will no doubt think it rather strange that I 
should write you a letter on the same day on which 
we parted; and I can only account for it by sup- 
posing that seeing you lately makes me think of 
you more than usual, while at our late meeting we 
had but few expressions of thoughts. You must 
know that I cannot see you or think of you with 
entire indift"erence ; and yet it may be that you are 
mistaken in regard to what my real feelings towards 
you are. If I knew you were not, I should not 
trouble you with this letter. Perhaps any other 
man would know enough without further informa- 
tion, but I consider it my peculiar right to plead 
ignorance and your bounden duty to allow the plea. 

"I want in all cases to do right; and most particu- 
larly so in all cases with women. I want, at this 
particular time, more than anything else, to do 
right with you, and if I knew it would be doing- 
right, as I rather suspect it would, to let you alone, I 
would do it. And for the purpose of making the 
matter as plain as possible, I now say, that you can 
now drop the subject, dismiss your thoughts (if you 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. I55 

ever had any) from me forever, and leave this letter 
unanswered, without calling forth one accusing mur- 
mur from me. And I will even go farther, and say, 
that if it will add anything to your comfort or 
peace of mind to do so, it is my sincere wish that 
you should. Do not understand by this that I wish 
to cut your acquaintance. I mean no such thing. 
What I do wish is that our further acquaintance 
shall depend upon yourself. If such further ac- 
quaintance would contribute nothing to your happi- 
ness, I am sure it would not to mine. If you feel 
yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now will- 
ing to release you, provided you wish it; while, on 
the other hand, I am willing and even anxious to 
bind you faster if I can be convinced that it will 
in any considerable degree add to your happiness. 
This, indeed, is the whole question with me. Noth- 
ing would make me more miserable, nothing more 
happy, than to know you were so. 

'Tn what I have now said^ I think I cannot be 
misunderstood ; and to make myself understood is 
the sole object of this letter. 

"If it suits you best to not answer this — farewell 
— a long life and a merry one attend you. But if 
you conclude to wTite back, speak as plainly as I do. 
There can be neither harm nor danger in saying 
to me anything you think, just in the manner you 
think it. 

"My respects to your sister. 

"Your friend, 

"Lincoln.'" 

For an account of the final outcome of this 
affaire du cceur the reader is now referred to the 
most ludicrous letter Mr. Lincoln ever wrote. It 
has been said, but with how much truth I do not 
know, that during his term as President the lady to 



156 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

whom it was written — Mrs. O. H. Browning, wife of 
a fellow-member of the Legislature — before giving 
a copy of it to a biographer, wrote to Lincoln asking 
his consent to the publication, but that he answered 
warning her against it because it was too full of 
truth. The only biographer who ever did insert it 
apologized for its appearance in his book, regarding 
it for many reasons as an extremely painful duty. 
''If it could be withheld," he laments, "and the 
act decently reconciled to the conscience of a biog- 
rapher"^ professing to be honest and candid, it 
should never see the light in these pages. Its gro- 
tesque humor, its coarse exaggerations in describing 
the person of a lady whom the writer was willing to 
marry; its imputation of toothless and weather- 
beaten old age to a woman really young and hand- 
some; its utter lack of that delicacy of tone and 
sentiment which one naturally expects a gentleman 
to adopt when he thinks proper to discuss the 
merits of his late mistress — all these, and its defec- 
tive orthography, it would certainly be more agree- 
able to suppress than to publish. IBut if we begin 
by omitting or mutilating a document which sheds 
so broad a light upon one part of his life and one 
phase of his character, why may we not do the like 
as fast and as often as the temptation arises? and 
where shall the process cease?" 

I prefer not to take such a serious view of the 
letter or its publication. Aly idea is, that Mr. 
Lincoln got into one of his irresistible moods of 
humor and fun — a state of feeling into which he 

* Lamon, p. 181. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 157 

frequently worked himself to avert the overwhelm- 
ing effects of his constitutional melancholy — and in 
the inspiration of the moment penned this letter, 
which many regard as an unfortunate composition. 
The class who take such a gloomy view of the 
matter should bear in mind that the letter was 
written by Mr. Lincoln in the fervor of early man- 
hood, just as he was emerging from a most embar- 
rassing situation, and addressed to a friend whom he 
supposed would keep it sacredly sealed from the 
public eye. As a matter of fact Mr. Lincoln was 
not gifted with a ready perception of the propriety 
of things in all cases. Nothing with him was 
intuitive. To have profound judgment and just 
discrimination he required time to think; and if 
facts or events were forced before him in too rapid 
succession the machinery of his judgment failed to 
work. A knowledge of this fact will account for 
the letter, and also serve to rob the offence — if any 
was committed — of half its severity. 

The letter was written in the same month Miss 
Owens made her final departure from Illinois. 

"Springfield, April 1, 1838. 
"Dear 2vIadam : — 

"Without apologizing for being egotistical, I 
shall make the history of so much of my life as 
has elapsed since I saw you the subject of this 
letter. And, by the way, I now discover that, in 
order to give a full and intelligible account of the 
things I have done and suffered since I saw you, I 
shall necessarily have to relate some that happened 
before. 

"It was, then, in the autumn of 1836 that a mar- 



158 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

ried lady of my acquaintance and who was a great 
friend of mine, being about to pay a visit to her 
father and other relatives residing in Kentucky, 
proposed to me that on her return she would bring 
a sister of hers with her on condition that I would 
engage to become her brother-in-law with all con- 
venient despatch. I, of course, accepted the pro- 
posal, for you know I could not have done other- 
wise, had I really been averse to it; but privately, 
between you and me I was most confoundedly well 
pleased with the project. I had seen the said sister 
some three years before, thought her intelligent 
and agreeable, and saw no good objection to plod- 
ding life through hand in hand with her. Time 
passed on, the lady took her journey, and in due 
time returned, sister in company sure enough. This 
astonished me a little; for it appeared to me that 
her coming so readily showed that she was a trifle 
too willing; but, on reflection, it occurred to me 
that she might have been prevailed on by her mar- 
ried sister to come, without anything concerning 
me ever having been mentioned to her; and so I 
concluded that, if no other objection presented 
itself, I would consent to waive this. All this 
occurred to me on hearing of her arrival in the 
neighborhood; for, be it remembered, I had not yet 
seen her, except about three years previous, as 
above mentioned. In a few days we had an inter- 
view ; and, although I had seen her before, she did 
not look as my imagination had pictured her. I 
knew she was over-size, but she now appeared a fair 
match for Falstaff. I knew she was called an 'old 
maid,' and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least 
half of the appellation; but now, when I beheld her, 
I could not for my life avoid thinking of my 
mother; and this, not from withered features, for 
her skin was too full of fat to permit of its contract- 
ing into wrinkles, but from her want of teeth, 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 159. 

weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a 
kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing 
could have commenced at the size of infancy and 
reached her present bulk in less than thirty-five or 
forty years; and, in short, I was not at all pleased 
with her. But what could I do? I had told her 
sister I would take her for better or for worse; and 
I made a point of honor and conscience in all things 
to stick to my word, especially if others had been 
induced to act on it, which in this case I had no 
doubt they had; for I was now fairly convinced 
that no other man on earth would have her, and 
hence the conclusion that they were bent on hold- 
ing me to my bargain. 'Well,' thought I, 'I have 
said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it 
shall not be my fault if I fail to do it.' At once I 
determined to consider her my wife; and, this done, 
all my powers of discovery were put to work in 
search of perfections in her which might be fairly 
set off against her defects. I tried to imagine her 
handsome, which, but for her unfortunate corpu- 
lency, was actually true. Exclusive of this, no 
woman that I have ever seen has a finer face. I 
also tried to convince myself that the mind was 
much more to be valued than the person ; and in 
this she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any 
with whom I had been acquainted. 

"Shortly after this, without coming to any posi- 
tive understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, 
when and where you first saw me. During my stay 
there I had letters from her which did not change 
my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but 
on the contrary confirmed it in both. 

"All this while, although I was fixed, 'firm as 
the surge-repelling rock,' in my resolution, I found 
I was con^tinually repenting the rashness which had 
led me to make it. Through life, I have been in 
no bondage, either real or imaginary, from the thral- 



160 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

dom of which I so much desired to be free. After 
my return home, I saw nothing to change my opin- 
ions of her in any particular. She was the same, 
and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how 
I might get along through life after my contem- 
plated change of circumstances should have taken 
place, and how I might procrastinate the evil day 
for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps 
more, than an Irishman does the halter. 

"After all my suffering upon this deeply interest- 
ing subject, here I am, wholly, unexpectedly, com- 
pletely, out of the 'scrape' ; and now I want to 
know if you can guess how I got out of it — out, 
clear, in every sense of the term ; no violation of 
word, honor, or conscience. I don't believe you can 
guess, and so I might as well tell you at once. As 
the lawyer says, it was done in the manner follow- 
ing, to-wit: After I had delayed the matter as long 
as I thought I could in honor do (which, by the 
way, had brought me round into the last fall), I 
concluded I might as well bring it to a consumma- 
tion without further delay ; and so I mustered my 
resolution, and made the proposal to her direct ; 
but, shocking to relate, she answered, No. At first 
I supposed she did it through an affectation of 
modesty, which I thought but ill became her under 
the peculiar circumstances of her case ; but on my 
renewal of the charge, I found she repelled it with 
greater firmness than before. I tried it again and 
again, but with the same success, or rather with the 
same want of success. 

"I finally was forced to give it up ; at which I 
very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost 
beyond endurance. I was mortified, j^t seemed to 
me, in a hundred different ways. My vanity was 
deeply wounded by the reflection that I had been 
too stupid to discover her intentions, and at the 
same time never doubting that I understood them 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 161 

perfectly; and also that she, whom I had taught 
myself to believe nobody else would have, had 
actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness. 
And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time 
began to suspect that I was really a little in love 
with her. But let it all go. I'll try and outlive 
it. Others have been made fools of by the girls; 
but this can never with truth be said of me. I 
most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool of 
myself. I have now come to the conclusion never 
again to think of marrying, and for this reason: I 
can never be satisfied with any one who would be 
blockhead enough to have me. 

''When you receive this, write me a long yarn 
about something to amuse me. Give my respects 
to Mr. Browning. 

"Your sincere friend, 

"A. Lincoln.'' 

Mrs, O. H. Browning. 

As before mentioned Miss Owens was afterwards 
married and became the mother of five children. 
Two of her sons served in the Confederate army. 
She died July 4, 1877. Speaking of Mr. Lincoln a 
short time before her death she referred to him as 
"a man with a heart full of human kindness and a 
head full of common-sense." 



CHAPTER VIIL 

In December, 1834, Lincoln prepared himself for 
the Legislature to which he had been elected by 
such a complimentary majority. Through the gen- 
erosity of his friend Smoot he purchased a new suit 
of clothes, and entering the stage at New Salem, 
rode through to Vandalia, the seat of government. 
He appreciated the dignity of his new position, and 
instead of walking to the capitol, as some of his 
biographers have contended, availed himself of the 
usual mode of travel. At this session of the Legis- 
lature he was anything but conspicuous. In reality 
he was very modest, but shrewd enough to impress 
the force of his character on those persons whose 
influence might some day be of advantage to him. 
He made but little stir, if we are to believe the 
record, during the whole of this first session. Made 
a member of the committee on Public Accounts 
and Expenditures, his name appears so seldom in 
the reports of the proceedings that we are prone to 
conclude that he must have contented himself with 
listening to the flashes of border oratory and ab- 
sorbing his due proportion of parliamentary law. 
He was reserved in manner, but very observant ; 
said little, but learned much ; made the acquaint- 
ance of all the members and many influential per- 

162 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 163 

sons on the outside. The lobby at that day con- 
tained the representative men of the state — men of 
acknowledged prominence and respectability, many 
of them able lawyers, drawn thither in advocacy 
of some pet bill. Schemes of vast internal im- 
provements attracted a retinue of log-rollers, who 
in later days seem to have been an indispensable 
necessity in the movement of complicated legisla- 
tive machinery. Men of capital and brains were 
there. He early realized the importance of know- 
ing all these, trusting to the inspiration of some 
future hour to impress them with his skill as an 
organizer or his power as an orator. Among the 
mem.bers of the outside or "third body" was 
Stephen A. Douglas, whom Lincoln then saw for 
the first time. Douglas had come from Vermont 
only the year before, but was already undertaking 
to supplant John J. Hardin in the office of States 
Attorney for the district in which both lived. 
What .impression he made on Lincoln, what opin- 
ions each formed of the other, or what the extent 
of their acquaintance then was, we do not know. It 
is said that Lincoln afterwards in mentioning their 
first meeting observed of the newly-arrived Ver- 
monter that he was the "least man he had ever 
seen." The Legislature proper contained the youth 
and blood and fire of the frontier. Some of the 
men who participated in these early parliament- 
ary battles were destined to carry the banners 
of great political parties, some to lead in. war and 
some in the great council chamber of the nation. 
Some were to fill the Governor's office, others to 



164 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

wear the judicial ermine, and one was destined to 
be Chief Magistrate and die a martyr to the cause 
of human Hberty. 

The society of Vandalia and the people attracted 
thither by the Legislature made it, for that early 
day, a gay place indeed. Compared to Lincoln's 
former environments, it had no lack of refinement 
and polish. That he absorbed a good deal of this 
by contact w^ith the men and women who sur- 
rounded him there can be no doubt. The ''drift of 
sentiment and the sweep of civilization" at this 
time can best be measured by the character of the 
legislation. There were acts to incorporate banks, 
turnpikes, bridges, insurance companies, towns, 
railroads, and female academies. The vigor and 
enterprise of New England fusing with the illusory 
prestige of Kentucky and Virginia was fast forming 
a new civilization to spread over the prairies ! 
At this session Lincoln remained quietly in the 
background, and contented himself with the intro- 
duction of a resolution in favor of securing to the 
State a part of the proceeds of sales of public lands 
within its limits. With this brief and modest rec- 
ord he returned to his constituents at New Salem. 
With zealous perseverance, he renewed his applica- 
tion to the law and to surveying, continuing his 
studies in both departments until he became, as he 
thought, reliable and proficient. By reason of a 
change in the office of Surveyor for the county 
he became a deputy under Thomas M. Neale, who 
had been elected to succeed John Calhoun. The 
speculation in lands made a brisk business for the 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 165 

new surveyor, who even added Calhoun, his prede- 
cessor, to the list of deputies. Lincoln had now 
become somewhat established in the good-will and 
respect of his constituents. His bashfulness and 
timidity was gradually giving way to a feeling of 
self-confidence, and he began to exult over his abil- 
ity to stand alone. The brief taste of public office 
which he had just enjoyed, and the distinction it 
gave him only whetted his appetite for further hon- 
ors. Accordingly, in 1836 we find him a candidate 
for the Legislature again. I well remember this 
campaign and the election which followed, for my 
father. Archer G. Herndon, was also a candidate, 
aspiring to a seat in the State Senate. The leg- 
islature at the session previous had in its apportion- 
ment bill increased the delegation from Sangamon 
county to seven Representatives and two Sena- 
tors. Party conventions had not yet been invented, 
and there being no nominating machinery to in- 
terfere, the field was open for any and all to run. 
Lincoln again resorted, in opening his canvass, to 
the medium of the political handbill. Although it 
had not operated with the most satisfactory results 
in his first campaign, yet he felt willing to risk it 
again. Candidates of that day evinced far more 
willingness to announce their position than political 
aspirants do now. Without waiting for a conven- 
tion to construct a platform, or some great politi- 
cal leader to "sound the key-note of the campaign," 
they stepped to the forefront and blew the bugle 
themselves. This custom will account for the bold- 
ness of Lincoln's utterances and the unequivocal 



166 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

tone of his declarations. His card — a sort of politi- 
cal f ulmination — was as follows : 

"New Salem, June 13, 1836. 
''To the Editor of The Journal: 

"In your paper of last Saturday I see a com- 
munication over the signature of "Many Voters" 
in which the candidates who are announced in the 
Journal are called upon to 'show their hands/ 
Agreed. Here's mine: 

"I go for all sharing the privileges of the govern- 
ment who assist in bearing its burdens. Conse- 
quently, I go for admitting all whites to the right 
of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no 
means excluding females). 

"If elected I shall consider the whole people of 
Sangamon my constituents, as well those that 
oppose as those that support me. 

"While acting as their Representative, I shall be 
governed by their will on all subjects upon which I 
have the means of knowing what their will is; and 
upon all others I shall do what my own judg- 
ment teaches me will best advance their interests. 
Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the 
proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several 
States to enable our State, in common with others, 
to dig canals and construct railroads without bor- 
rowing money and paying the interest on it. 

"If alive on the first Monday in November, I 
shall vote for Hugh L. White, for President. 
"Very respectfully, 

"A. Lincoln.'' 

It is generally admitted that the bold and decided 
stand Lincoln took — though too audacious and 
emphatic for statesmen of a later day — suited the 
temper of the times. Leaving out of sight his 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 157 

expressed preference for White of Tennessee, — on 
whom all the anti-Jackson forces were disposed to 
concentrate, and which was but a mere question of 
men, — there is much food for thought in the second 
paragraph. His broad plan for universal suffrage 
certainly commends itself to the ladies, and we need 
no further evidence to satisfy our minds of his posi- 
tion on the subject of "Woman's Rights," had he 
lived. In fact, I cannot refrain from noting here 
what views he in after years held with reference to 
the great questions of moral and social reforms, 
under which he classed universal suffrage, temper- 
ance, and slavery. "All such questions," he ob- 
served one day, as we were discussing temperance 
in the office, "must first find lodgment with the most 
enlightened souls who stamp them with their ap- 
proval. In God's own time they will be organized 
into law and thus woven into the fabric of our in-; 
stitutions." 

The canvass which followed this public avowal of 
creed, was more exciting than any which had pre- 
ceded it. There were joint discussions, and, at 
times, much feehng was exhibited. Each candidate 
had his friends freely distributed through the crowd, 
and it needed but a few angry interruptions or 
insinuating rejoinders from one speaker to another 
to bring on a conflict between their friends. Fre- 
quently the speakers led in the battle themselves, 
as in the case of Ninian W. Edwards — afterwards a 
brother-in-law of Lincoln — who, in debate, drew a 
pistol on his opponent Achilles Morris, a prominent 
Democrat. An interesting relic of this canvass 



168 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

recently came to light, in a letter which Mr. Lin- 
coln wrote a week after he had announced his can- 
didacy. It is addressed to Colonel Robert Allen, 
a Democratic politician of local prominence, who 
had been circulating some charges intended to 
affect Lincoln's chances of election. The affair 
brought to the surface what little satire there was 
in Lincoln's nature, and he administers — by way of 
innuendo — such a flaying as the gallant colonel 
doubtless never wanted to have repeated. The 
strangest part of it all is that the letter was 
recently found and given to the public by Allen's 
own son.^' It is as follows: 

''New Salem, June 21, 1836. 
*'Dear Colonel: 

'T am told that during my absence last week 
you passed through the place and stated publicly 
that you were in possession of a fact or facts, 
which if known to the public would entirely destroy 
the prospects of N. W. Edwards and myself at the 
ensuing election, but that through favor to us 
you would forbear to divulge them. No one has 
needed favors more than I, and generally few have 
been less unwilling to accept them, but in this case 
favor to me would be injustice to the public, and 
therefore I must beg your pardon for declining 
it. That I once had the confidence of the people 
of Sangamon county is sufficiently evident; and if I 
have done anything, either by design or misadven- 
ture, which if known would subject me to a forfeit- 
ure of that confidence, he that knows of that thing, 
and conceals it, is a traitor to his country's interest. 



* The MS. is now in possession of the Lincoln Monument Asso- 
ciation of Springfield. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 159 

"I find myself wholly unable to form any conjec- 
ture of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you 
spoke; but my opinion of your veracity will not 
permit me for a moment to doubt that you at least 
believed what you said. I am flattered with the 
personal regard you manifested for me; but I do 
hope that on mature reflection you will view the 
public interest as a paramount consideration and 
therefore let the worst come. 

"I assure you that the candid statement of facts 
on your part, however low it may sink me, shall 
never break the ties of personal friendship between 
us. 

*'I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty 
to publish both if you choose. 

"Very respectfully, 

*'A. Lincoln." 

Col. Robert Allen. 

Lincoln was sure the letter never would be 
published or answered, because Allen had no facts 
whatever upon which to base any such charges. 
He also knew that Allen, who was a hide-bound 
Democrat, was in politics the most unreliable 
man in Sangamon county. A vein of irony runs 
all through the letter, especially where in such a 
delicate way he pays tribute to the veracity of 
Allen, who, although a generous fellow in the ordi- 
nary sense of the term, was unlimited in exaggera- 
tion and a veritable bag of wind. The effort to 
smoke him out seems to have been of little effect, 
but enough appears in Lincoln's letter to show 
that he was thoroughly warmed up. 

A joint debate in which all the candidates partic- 
ipated, took place on the Saturday preceding the 



170 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

election. *'The speaking began in the forenoon," 
says one of the participants, "the candidates speak- 
ing alternately until everyone who could speak had 
had his turn, generally consuming the whole after- 
noon." Dr. Early, a Democratic candidate, in his 
speech took issue with Ninian W. Edwards, stigma- 
tizing some of the latter's statements as untrue. 
This brought Edwards to his feet with a similar 
retort. His angry tone and menacing manner, as 
he mounted a table and with clenched fist hurled 
defiance at his challenger, foreboded a tumultuous 
scene. "The excitement that followed," relates 
another one of the candidates,"^ "was intense — so 
much so that fighting men thought a duel must settle 
the difficulty. Mr. Lincoln by the programme fol- 
lowed Early. Taking up the subject in dispute, he 
handled it so fairly and with such ability, all were 
astonished and pleased." The turbulent spirits 
wxre quieted and the difficulty was easily overcome. 

Lincoln's friend Joshua F. Speed relates that dur- 
ing this campaign he made a speech in Springfield 
a few days before the election. "The crowd was 
large," says Speed, "and great numbers of his 
friends and admirers had come in from the country. 
I remember that his speech was a very able one, 
using with great power and originality all the argu- 
ments used to sustain the principles of the Whig 
party as against its great rival, the Democratic 
party of that day. The speech produced a pro- 
found impression — the crowd was with him. 

*R. L. Wilson, letter, Feb. 10, 1866. MS. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 



171 



George Forquer, an old citizen, a man of recognized 
prominence and ability as a lawyer, was present. 
Forquer had been a Whig— one of the champions 
of the party— but had then recently joined the 
Democratic party, and almost simultaneous with 
the change had been appointed Register of the 
Land Office, which office he then held. Just 
about that time Mr. Forquer had completed a neat 
frame house— the best house then in Springfield— 
and over it had erected a lightning rod, the only 
one in the place and the first one Mr. Lincoln had 
ever seen. He afterwards told me that seeing For- 
quer's lightning rod had led him to the study of the 
properties of electricity and the utility of the rod 
as a conductor. At the conclusion of Lincoln's 
speech the crowd was about dispersing, when For- 
quer rose and asked to be heard. He commenced 
by saying that the young man would have to be 
taken down, and was sorry the task devolved on 
him. He then proceeded to answer Lincoln's 
speech in a style which, while it was able and fair, 
in his whole manner asserted and claimed superi- 
ority." Lincoln stood a few steps away with arms 
folded, carefully watching the speaker and taking in 
everything he said. He was laboring under a good 
deal of suppressed excitement. Forquer's sting 
had roused the lion within him. At length For- 
quer concluded, and he mounted the stand to reply. 

"I have heard him often since," continued Speed, 
"in the courts and before the people, but never saw 
him appear and acquit himself so well as upon that 
occasion. His reply to Forquer was characterized 



172 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

by great dignity and force. I shall never forget the 
conclusion of that speech : 'Mr. Forquer com- 
menced his speech by announcing that the young 
man would have to be taken down. It is for you, 
fellow citizens, not for me to say whether I am up 
or down. The gentleman has seen fit to allude to 
iny being a young man ; but he forgets that I am 
■older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of 
politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and 
'distinction; but I would rather die now than, like 
;the gentleman, live to see the day that I would 
'change my politics for an office worth three thou- 
sand dollars a year, and then feel compelled to erect 
a lightning rod to protect a guilty conscience from 
an ofifended God.' " The effect of this rejoinder was 
wonderful, and gave Forquer and his lightning 
rod a notoriety the extent of which no one envied 
him. 

In the election which followed, Sangamon county 
in a political sense was entirely turned over. Hith- 
erto the Democrats had always carried it, but now 
the Whigs gained control by an average majority of 
four hundred. This time Lincoln led his ticket. 
The nine elected were, Abraham Lincoln, Ninian 
W. Edwards, John Dawson, Andrew McCormick, 
Dan Stone, Wm. F. Elkin, Robert L. Wilson, 
Job Fletcher, and Archer G. Herndon. The last 
two were senators. On assembling at VandaHa 
they were at once, on account of their stature, 
dubbed the "Long Nine." In height they .averaged 
over six feet, and in weight over two hundred 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 173 



pounds. "We were not only noted," says one* of 
them, "for our number and length, but for our 
combined influence. All the bad or objectional 
laws passed at that session of the Legislature and 
for many years afterwards were chargeable to the 
management and influence of the 'Long Nine.' " 
It is not my purpose to enter into a detailed ac- 
count of legislation at this period or to rehearse 
the history of the political conditions. Many and 
ingenious were the manoeuvres, but it would fill page 
after page to narrate them. One thing which de- 
serves mention in passing was "that Yankee con- 
trivance," the convention system, which for the 
first time was brought into use. The Democrats, in 
obedience to the behests of Jackson, had adopted 
it, and, singularly enough, among the very first 
named for office under the operation of the new 
system was Stephen A. Douglas, who was elected to 
the Legislature from Morgan county. Its introduc- 
tion was attributed to Ebenezer Peck, of Chicago, 
a Democrat who had once, it was said, served in 
the Canadian Parliament. This latter supposed 
connection with a monarchical institution was suffi- 
cient to bring down on his head the united hostility 
of the Whigs, a feeling in which even Lincoln 
joined. But after witnessing for a time the wonder- 
ful effects of its discipline in Democratic ranks, 
the Whigs too fell in, and resorted to the use of 
the improved machinery. 

The Legislature of which Mr. Lincoln thus be- 



R. L. Wilson. MS. 



174 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

came a member was one that will never be for- 
gotten in Illinois. Its legislation in aid of the 
so-called internal improvement system was sig- 
nificantly reckless and unwise. The gigantic and 
stupendous operations of the scheme dazzled the 
eyes of nearly everybody, but in the end it rolled 
up a debt so enormous as to impede the otherwise 
marvelous progress of Illinois. The burdens im- 
posed by this Legislature under the guise of 
improvements became so monumental in size it is 
little v/onder that at intervals for years afterward the 
monster of repudiation often showed its hideous 
face above the waves of popular indignation. 
These attempts at a settlement of the debt brought 
about a condition of things which it is said led the 
Little Giant, in one of his efforts on the stump, to 
suggest that "Illinois ought to be honest if she 
never paid a cent." However much we may regret 
that Lincoln took part and aided in this reckless leg- 
islation, we must not forget that his party and all his 
constitutents gave him their united endorsement. 
They gave evidence of their approval of his course 
by two subsequent elections to the same office. It 
has never surprised me in the least that Lincoln fell 
so harmoniously in with the great system of im- 
provement. He never had what some people call 
''money sense." By reason of his peculiar nature 
and construction he was endowed with none of the 
elements of a political economist. He was en- 
thusiastic and theoretical to a certain degree; 
could take hold of, and wrap himself up in, a great 
moral question; but in dealing with the financial 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 175 

and commercial interests of a community or gov- 
ernment he was equally as inadequate as he was 
ineffectual in managing the economy of his own 
household. In this respect alone I always regarded 
Mr. Lincoln as a weak man. 

One of his biographers, describing his legislative 
career at this time, says of him : "He was big with 
prospects : his real public service was just now 
about to begin. In the previous Legislature he had 
been silent, observant, studious. He had improved 
the opportunity so well that of all men in this new 
body, of equal age in the service, he was the 
smartest parliamentarian and cunningest 'log roller.' 
He was fully determined to identify himself conspic- 
uously with the liberal legislation in contemplation, 
and dreamed of a fame very different from that 
which he actually obtained as an anti-slavery leader. 
It was about this time he told his friend Speed that 
he aimed at the great distinction of being called the 
'DeWitt Clinton of Illinois.' " 

The representatives in the Legislature from San- 
gamon county had been instructed by a mass con- 
vention of their constituents to vote "for a general 
system of internal improvements." Another con- 
vention of delegates from all the counties in the 
State met at Vandalia and made a similar recom- 
mendation to the members of the Legislature, 
specifying that it should be "commensurate with the 
wants of the people." Provision was made for a 
gridiron of railroads. The extreme points of the 
State, east and west, north and south, were to be 
brought together by thirteen hundred miles of iron 



176 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

rails. Every river and stream of the least impor- 
tance was to be widened, deepened, and made 
navigable. A canal to connect the Illinois River 
and Lake Michigan was to be dug, and thus the 
great system was to be made "commensurate with 
the wants of the people." To effect all these great 
ends, a loan of twelve million dollars was authorized 
before the session closed. Work on all these gigan- 
tic enterprises was to begin at the earliest prac- 
ticable moment ; cities were to spring up every- 
where; capital from abroad was to come pouring in; 
attracted by the glowing reports of marvelous 
progress and great internal wealth, people were to 
come swarming in by colonies, until in the end 
Illinois was to outstrip all the others, and herself 
become the Empire State of the Union. 

Lincoln served on the Committee on Finance, 
and zealously labored for the success of the great 
measures proposed, believing they would ultimately 
enrich the State, and redound to the glory of all 
who aided in their passage. In advocating these 
extensive and far-reaching plans he was not alone. 
Stephen A. Douglas, John A. McClernand, James 
Shields, and others prominent in the subsequent 
history of the State, were equally as earnest in es- 
pousing the cause of improvement, and sharing 
with him the glory that attended it. Next in 
importance came the bill to remove the seat of 
government from Vandalia. Springfield, of course, 
wanted it. So also did Alton, Decatur, Peoria, 
Jacksonville, and lUiopolis. But the Long Nine, 
by their adroitness and influence, were too much 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 177 

for their contestants. They made a bold fight for 
Springfield, intrusting the management of the bill 
to Lincoln. The friends of other cities fought 
Springfield bitterly, but under Lincoln's leadership 
the Long Nine contested with them every inch of 
the way. The struggle was warm and protracted. 
**Its enemies," relates one of Lincoln's colleagues,* 
"laid it on the table twice. In those darkest hours 
when our bill to all appearances was beyond resusci- 
tation, and all our opponents were jubilant over our 
defeat, and when friends could see no hope, Mr. 
Lincoln never for one moment despaired; but 
collecting his colleagues to his room for consulta- 
tion, his practical common-sense, his thorough 
knowledge of human nature, then made him an 
overmatch for his compeers and for any man that I 
have ever known." The friends of the bill at last 
surmounted all obstacles, and only a day or two 
before the close of the session secured its passage 
by a joint vote of both houses. 

Meanwhile the great agitation against human 
slavery, which like a rare plant had flourished amid 
the hills of New England in luxuriant growth, 
began to make its appearance in the West. Mis- 
sionaries in the great cause of human liberty were 
settUng everywhere. Taunts, jeers, ridicule, perse- 
cution, assassination even, were destined to prove 
ineffectual in the effort to suppress or exterminate 
these pioneers of Abolitionism. These brave but 
derided apostles carried with them the seed of a 



R. L. Wilson, MS. 



178 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

great reform. Perhaps, as was then said of them, 
they were somewhat in advance of their season, and 
perhaps too, some of the seed might be sown in 
sterile ground and never come to Hfe, but they 
comforted themselves with the assurance that it 
would not all die. A litttle here and there was 
destined to grow to life and beauty. 

It is not surprising, I think, that Lincoln should 
have viewed this New England importation vvath 
mingled suspicion and alarm. Abstractly, and 
from the standpoint of conscience, he abhorred 
slavery. But born in Kentucky, and surrounded as 
he was by slave-holding influences, absorbing their 
prejudices and following in their line of thought, it 
is not strange, I repeat, that he should fail to esti- 
mate properly the righteous indignation and unre- 
strained zeal of a Yankee Abolitionist. On the 
last day but one of the session, he solicited his 
colleagues to sign with him a mild and carefully 
worded protest against certain resolutions on the 
subject of domestic slavery, which had been passed 
by both houses of the Legislature. They all 
declined, however, save one, Dan Stone,^ who with 



* Following are the resolutions against the passage of which 
Lincoln and Stone made their protest : 

Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois : 
That we highly disapprove of the formation of Abolition socie- 
ties and of the doctrines promulgated by them, 

That the right of property in slaves is sacred to the slave- 
holding States by the Federal Constitution, and that they cannot 
be deprived of that right without their consent. 

That the General Government cannot abolish slavery in the 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 179 

his associate will probably be known long after 
mention of all other members of the Long Nine 
has dropped from history. The language and 
sentiment are clearly Lincolnian, and over twenty 
years afterward, when it was charged that Lincoln 
was an Abolitionist, and this protest was cited as 
proof, it was only necessary to call for a careful 
reading of the paper for an unqualified and over- 
whelming refutation of the charge. The records of 
the Legislature for March 3, 1837, contain this 
entry : 

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic 
slavery having passed both branches of the General 
Assembly at its present session, the undersigned 
hereby protest against the passage of the same. 

"They believe that the institution of slavery is 
founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that 
the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends 
rather to increase than abate its evils. 

"They believe that the Congress of the United 

States has no power under the Constitution to 

interfere with the institution of slavery in the 
different States. 

"They believe that the Congress of the United 
States has the power under the Constitution to 
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that 
the power ought not to be exercised unless at the 
request of the people of the District. 



District of Columbia ag-ainst the consent of the citizens of said 
District, without a manifest breach of good faith. 

That the Governor be requested to transmit to the States of 
Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, New York, and Connecticut, a 
copy of the foregoing report and resolutions. 



180 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

"The difference between these opinions and 
those contained in the above resolutions is their 
reason for entering this protest. 

"Dan Stone, 

"A. Lincoln, 

"Representatives from the county of Sangamon. "^ 

This document so adroitly drawn and worded, 
this protest pruned of any offensive allusions, and 
cautiously framed so as to suit the temper of the 
times, stripped of its verbal foliage reveals in 
naked grandeur the solemn truth that "the institu- 
tion of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad 
policy." A quarter of a century later finds one of 
these protesters righting the injustice and correct- 
ing the bad policy of the inhuman and diabol- 
ical institution. 

The return of the "Long Nine" to Springfield 
was the occasion of much enthusiasm and joy. 
The manifestations of public delight had never 
been equalled before, save when the steamer Talis- 
man made its famous trip down the Sangamon in 
1831. The returning legislators were welcomed 
with public dinners and the effervescent buncombe 
of local orators. Amid the congratulations of warm 
friends and the approval of their enthusiastic 
constituents, in which Lincoln received the lion's 
share of praise, they separated, each departing to 
his own home. 

After his return from the Legislature, Lincoln 
determined to remove to Springfield, the county 
seat, and begin the practice of the law. Having 
been so instrumental in securing the removal of the 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 181 

State Capital from Vandalia, and having received 
such encouraging assurances from Major John T. 
Stuart and other leading citizens, he felt confident 
of a good start.* He had little, if any, money, but 
hoped to find in Springfield, as he had in New 
Salem, good and influential friends, who, recogniz- 
Tng alike his honesty and his nobility of character, 
would aid him whenever a crisis came and their 
help was needed. In this hope he was by no 
means in error, for his subsequent history shows 
that he indeed united his friends to himself with 
hooks of steel. I had up to this time frequently 
seen Mr. Lincoln— had often, while visiting my 
cousins, James and Rowan Herndon, at New Salem, 
met him at their house— but became warmly at- 
tached to him soon after his removal to Springfield. 
There was something in his tall and angular frame, 
his ill-fitting garments, honest face, and lively 
humor that imprinted his individuality on my affec- 
tion and regard. What impression I made on him I 
had no means of knowing till many years afterward. 
He was my senior by nine years, and I looked up to 
him, naturally enough, as my superior in everythmg— 
a thing I continued to do till the end of his days. 



* T incoln used to come to our office— Stuart's and mine— in 
SprinSeld from New Salem and borrow law-books. Sometunes 
he walked but generally rode. He was the --^ "^^-^ ^J^^^^ 
ing young man I ever saw. He seemed to have ^ut httle to 
say seemed to feel timid, with a tinge of sadness visible m the 
countenance, but when he did talk all this disappeared for the 
time and he demonstrated that he was both s rong and -ut^- 
He surprised us more and more at every visit. -Henry B. 
Dummer, Statement, Sept. 16th, 1865. 



182 T'HE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Now that the State capital was to be located at 
Springfield, .that place began, by way of asserting 
its social superiority, to put on a good many airs. 
Wealth made its gaudy display, and thus sought 
to attain a pre-eminence from which learning and 
refinement are frequently cut off. Already, people 
had settled there who could trace their descent 
down a long line of distinguished ancestry. The 
established families were mainly from Kentucky. 
They re-echoed the sentiments and reflected the 
arrogance and elegance of a slave-holding aristoc- 
racy. "The Todds, Stuarts, and Edwardses were 
there, with priests, dogs, and servants ;" there also 
were the Mathers, Lambs, Opdykes, Forquers, and 
Fords. Amid all ''the flourishing about in car- 
riages" and the pretentious elegance of that early 
day was Lincoln. Of origin, doubtful if not un- 
known; "poor, without the means of hiding his 
poverty," he represented yet another importation 
from Kentucky which is significantly comprehended 
by the terms, "the poor whites." Springfield, con- 
taining between one and two thousand people, was 
near the northern line of settlement in Illinois. 
Still it was the center of a limited area of wealth 
and refinement. Its citizens were imbued with the 
spirit of push and enterprise. Lincoln therefore 
could not have been throv/n into a better or more 
appreciative community. 

In March, 1837, he was licensed to practice law. 
His name appears for the first time as attorney 
for the plaintiff in the case of Hawthorne vs. Wool- 
rid re. He entered the office and became the 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. I83 

partner of his comrade in the Black Hawk war, 
John T. Stuart, who had gained rather an exten- 
sive practice, and who, by the loan of sundry text- 
books several years before, had encouraged Lin- 
coln to continue in the study of law. Stuart had 
emigrated from Kentucky in 1828, and on account 
of his nativity, if for no other reason, had great 
influence with the leading people in Springfield. 
He used to relate that on the next morning after 
his arrival in Springfield he was standing in front of 
the village store, leaning against a post in the side- 
walk and v/ondering how to introduce himself to 
the community, when he was approached by a well- 
dressed old gentleman, who, interesting him.self in 
the newcomer's welfare, enquired after his history 
and business. "I'm from Kentucky," answered 
Stuart, "and my profession is that of a lawyer, sir. 
What is the prospect here?" Throwing his head 
back and closing his left eye the old gentleman 

reflected a moment. "Young man, d d slim 

chance for that kind of combination here," was 
the response. 

At the time of Lincoln's entry into the office, 
Stuart was just recovering from the effects of a 
congressional race in which he had been the loser. 
He was still deeply absorbed in politics, and was 
preparing for the next canvass, in which he was fin- 
ally successful — defeating the wily and ambitious 
Stephen A. Douglas. In consequence of the politi- 
cal allurments, Stuart did not give to the law his 
undivided time or the full force of his energy and 
intellect. Thus more or less responsibility in the 



184 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

management of business and the conduct of cases 
soon devolved on Lincoln. The entries in the ac- 
count books of the firm are all in the handwrit- 
ing of Lincoln. Most of the declarations and pleas 
were written by him also. This sort of exercise 
was never congenial to him, and it was the only 
time, save a brief period under Judge Logan, 
that he served as junior partner and performed 
the labor required of one who serves in that rather 
subordinate capacity. He had not yet learned to 
love work. The office of the firm was in the upper 
story of a building opposite the north-west corner 
of the present Court-house Square. In the room 
underneath, the county court was held. The fur- 
niture was in keeping with the pretensions of the 
firm — a small lounge or bed, a chair containing a 
bufTalo robe, in which the junior member was wont 
to sit and study, a hard wooden bench, a feeble at- 
tempt at a book-case, and a table which answered 
for a desk. Lincoln's first attempt at settlement 
in Springfield, which preceded a few days his part- 
nership with Stuart, has been graphically described 
by his friend, Joshua F. Speed, who generously 
offered to share his quarters with the young legal 
aspirant. Speed, who was a prosperous young mer- 
chant, reports that Lincoln's personal effects con- 
sisted of a pair of saddle-bags containing two or 
three law books and a few pieces of clothing. "He 
had ridden into town on a borrowed horse," relates 
Speed, "and engaged from the only cabinet-maker 
in the village a single bedstead. He came into my 
store, set his saddle-bags on the counter, and en- 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 185 

quired what the furniture for a single bedstead 
would cost. I took slate and pencil, made a 
calculation, and found the sum for furniture com- 
plete would amount to seventeen dollars in all. 
Said he: 'It is probably cheap enough; but I 
want to say that, cheap as it is, I have not the 
money to pay. But if you will credit me until 
Christmas, and my experiment here as a lawyer is 
a success, I will pay you then. If I fail in that I 
will probably never pay you at all/ The tone 
of his voice was so melancholy that I felt for 
him. I looked up at him and I thought then, as I 
think now, that I never saw so gloomy and melan- 
choly a face in my life. I said to him, 'So small a 
debts seems to affect you so deeply, I think I can 
suggest a plan by which you will be able to attain 
your end without incurring any debt. I have a 
very large room and a very large double bed in it, 
which you are perfectly welcome to share with me 
if you choose.' 'Where is vour room?' he asked. 
'Upstairs,' said I, pointing to the stairs leading 
from the store to my room. Without saying a 
word he took his saddle-bags on his arm, went up- 
stairs, set them down on the floor, came down again, 
and with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles, 
exclaimed. 'Well, Speed, I'm moved.' " 

William Butler, who was prominent in the re- 
moval of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield, 
took no little interest in Lincoln, while a member 
of the Legislature. After his removal to Spring- 
field, Lincoln boarded at Butler's house for several 
years. He became warmly attached to the family, 



185 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

and it is probable the matter of pay never entered 
Butler's mind. He was not only able but willing 
to befriend the young lawyer in this and many 
other ways. 

Stephen T. Logan was judge of the Circuit Court, 
and Stephen A. Douglas was prosecuting attorney. 
Among the attorneys we find many promising 
spirits. Edward D. Baker, John T. Stuart, Cyrus 
Walker, Samuel H. Treat, Jesse B. Thomas, George 
Forquer, Dan Stone, Ninian W. Edwards, John J. 
Hardin, Schuyler Strong, A. T. Bledsoe, and Josiah 
Lamborn — a galaxy of names, each destined to 
shed more or less lustre on the history of the State. 
While I am inclined to believe that Lincoln did 
not, after entering Stuart's office, do as much deep 
and assiduous studying as people generally credit 
him with, yet I am confident he absorbed not a 
little learning by contact with the great minds who 
thronged about the courts and State Capitol. The 
books of Stuart and Lincoln, during 1837, show a 
practice more extensive than lucrative, for while 
they received a number of fees, only two or three 
of them reached fifty dollars ; and one of these has 
a credit of : "Coat to Stuart, $15.00," showing that 
they were compelled, now and then, even to ''trade 
out" their earnings. The litigation was as limited 
in importance as in extent. There were no great 
corporations, as in this progressive day, retaining 
for counsel the brains of the bar in every county 
seat, but the greatest as well as the least had to join 
the general scramble for practice. The courts con- 
sumed as much time deciding who had committed 



THE LIFE OF LIXCOLN. 187 

an assault or a trespass on a neighbor's ground, as 
it spent in the solution of questions arising on con- 
tracts, or unravelling similar legal complications. 
Lawyers depended for success, not on their knowl- 
ed-^e of the law or their familiarity with its under- 
lying principles, but placed their reliance rather on 
their frontier oratory and the influence of their 
personal bearing before the jury. 

Lincoln made Speed's store headquarters. There I 
politics, religion, and all other subjects were dis- | 
cussed. There also public sentiment was made. 
The store had a large fire-place in the rear, and 
around it the lights of the town collected every 
evening. As the sparks flew from the crackling 
logs, another and more brilliant fire flashed when 
these great minds came into collision. Here were 
wont to gather Lincoln, Douglas, Baker, Calhoun, 
Browning, Lamborn, Jesse B. Thomas and others. 
Only those who were present and listened to these 
embryonic statesmen and budding orators will ever be 
able to recall their brilliant thoughts and appreciate 
their youthful enthusiasm. In the fall and winter 
of 1837, while I was attending college at Jackson- 
ville, the persecution and death of Elijah P. Love- 
joy at Alton took place. This cruel and uncalled- 
for murder had aroused the anti-slavery sentiment 
everywhere. It penetrated the college, and both 
faculty and students were loud and unrestrained in 
their denunciation of the crime. My father, who 
was thoroughly pro-slaver}^ in his ideas, believing 
that the college was too strongly permeated with 
the virus of Abolitionism, forced me to withdraw 



138 ^-^^ ^^^^ ^^ LINCOLN. 

from the institution and return home. But it was 
too late. My soul had absorbed too much of what 
my father believed was rank poison. The mur- 
der of Love joy filled me with more desperation 
than the slave scene in New Orleans did Lincoln; 
for while he believed in non-interference with 
slavery, so long as the Constitution permitted and 
authorized its existence, I, although acting nomi- 
nally with the Whig party up to 1853, struck out 
ior Abolitionism pure and simple. 

On my return to Springfield from college, I hired 
to Joshua F. Speed as clerk in his store. My 
salary, seven hundred dollars per annum, was con- 
sidered good pay then. Speed, Lincoln, Charles 
R. Hurst, and I slept in the room upstairs over 
the store, I had worked for Speed before going to 
college, and after hiring to him this time again, 
continued in his employ for several years. The 
young men who congregated about the store 
formed a society for the encouragement of debate 
and literary efforts. Sometimes we would meet in 
a lawyer's office and often in Speed's room. Be- 
sides the debates, poems and other original pro- 
ductions were read. Unfortunately we ruled out 
the ladies. I am free to admit I would not encour- 
age a similar thing nowadays ; but in that early 
day the young men had not the comforts of books 
and newspapers which are within the reach of 
every boy now. Some allowance therefore should 
be made for us. I have forgotten the name of the 
society — if it had any — and can only recall a few 
of its leading spirits. Lincoln, James Matheney, 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 189 

Noah Rickard, Evan Butler, Milton Hay, and 
Newton Francis were members. I joined also. 
Matheney was secretary. We were favored with 
all sorts of literary productions. Lincoln himself 
entertained us with a few lines of rhyme intended 
to illustrate some weakness in w^oman — her frailty, 
perhaps. Matheney was able several years ago to 
repeat the one stanza which follows, and that was 
all he could recall — perhaps it was best he could 
remember no more: 



"Whatever spiteful fools may say. 

Each jealous, ranting yelper, 
No woman ever went astray 
Without a man to help her."* 



Besides this organization we had a society in 
Springfield, which contained and commanded all 



* Near Hoffman's Row, where the courts were held in 1839-40, 
lived a shoemaker who frequently would get drunk and in- 
variably whipped his wife. Lincoln, hearing of this, told the 
man if he ever repeated it he would thrash him soundly him- 
self. Meanwhile he told Evan Butler, Noah Rickard, and my- 
self of it, and we decided if the offense occurred again to 
join with Lincoln in suppressing it. In due course of time 
we heard of it. We dragged the offender up to the court- 
house, stripped him of his shirt, and tied him. to a post or 
pump which stood over the well in the yard back of the build- 
ing. Then we sent for his wife and arming her with a good 
limb bade her "light in." We sat on our haunches and watched 
the performance. The wife did her work lustily and well. 
When we thought the culprit had had enough Lincoln re- 
leased him ; we helped him on with his shirt and he crept 
sorrowfully homeward. Of course he threatened vengeance, 
but still we heard no further reports of wife-whipping from 
him. — James H. Matheney. 



190 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

the culture and talent of the place. Unlike the 
other one its meetings were public, and reflected 
great credit on the community. We called it the 
"Young Men's Lyceum." Late in 1837, Lincoln 
delivered before the society a carefully prepared 
address on the "Perpetuation of Our Free Institu- 
tions/'* The inspiration and burthen of it was law 
and order. It has been printed in full so often, and 
is always to be found in the list of Lincoln's public 
speeches, that I presume I need not reproduce it here. 
It was highly sophomoric in character and abounded 
in striking and lofty metaphor. In point of rhetor- 
ical effort it excels anything he ever afterward 
attempted. Probably it was the thing people 
expect from a young man of twenty-eight. The 
address was published in the Sangamon Journal 
and created for the young orator a reputation which 
soon extended beyond the limits of the locality in 
which he lived. As illustrative of his style of 
oratory, I beg to introduce the concluding para- 
graph of the address. Having characterized the 
surviving soldiers of the Revolution as "living 
histories," he closes with this thrilling flourish: 
"But these histories are gone. They can be read 
no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; 
but what invading foeman never could do, the 
silent artillery of time has — the levelling of its 



* Mr. Lincoln's speech was brought out by the burning in 
St. Louis a few weeks before, by a mob, of a negro, Lin- 
coln took this incident as a sort of text for his remarks. 
James Matheney was appointed by the Lyceum to request of 
Lincoln a copy of his speech and see to its publication. 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 191 

walls. They are gone. They were a forest of 
giant oaks ; but the all-resistless hurricane has swept 
over them, and left only here and there a lonely 
trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, 
unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more 
gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated 
limbs a few more rude storms, then to sink and be 
no more. They were pillars of the temple of lib- 
erty, and now that they have crumbled away, that 
temple must fall, unless we, their descendants, 
supply their places with other pillars hewn from the 
same solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has 
helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future 
be our enemy. Reason— cold, calculating, unim- 
passioned reason— must furnish all the materials 
for our further support and defense. Let these 
materials be moulded into general intelligence, 
sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for 
the Constitution and the laws. * * * Upon these 
let the proud fabric of freedom rest as the rock of 
its basis, and as truly as has been said of the only 
greater institution. The gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it.' " 

In time Lincoln's style changed: he became more 
eloquent but with less gaudy ornamentation. He 
grew in oratorical power, dropping gradually the 
alliteration and rosy metaphor of youth, until he 
was able at last to deliver that grandest of all 
orations— the Gettysburg address. 

One evening, while the usual throng of loungers 
surrounded the inviting fireplace in Speed's store, 
the conversation turned on political matters. The 



192 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

disputants waxed warm and acrimonious as the 
discussion proceeded. Business being over for the 
day, I strolled back and seating myself on a keg 
listened with eager interest to the battle going on 
among these would-be statesmen. Douglas, I rec- 
ollect, was leading on the Democratic side. He had 
already learned the art of dodging in debate, but 
still he was subtle, fiery, and impetuous. He 
charged the Whigs with every blunder and poltical 
crime he could imagine. No vulnerable spot 
seemed to have escaped him. At last, with great 
vehemence, he sprang up and abruptly made a chal- 
lenge to those who differed with him to discuss the 
whole matter publicly, remarking that, "This store 
is no place to talk politics." In answer to Doug- 
las's challenge the contest was entered into. It 
took place in the Presbyterian Church. Douglas, 
Calhoun, Lamborn, and Thomas represented the 
Democrats; and Logan, Baker, Browning, and Lin- 
coln, in the order named, presented the Whig side 
of the question. One evening was given to each 
man, and it therefore required over a week to com- 
plete the tournament. Lincoln occupied the last 
evening, and although the people by that time had 
necessarily grown a little tired of the monotony and 
wxll-worn repetition, yet Lincoln's manner of pre- 
senting his thoughts and answering his Democratic 
opponents excited renewed interest. So deep was the 
impression he created that he was asked to furnish 
his speech to the Sangamon Journal for publication, 
and it afterwards appeared in the columns of that 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 193 

Meanwhile Air. Lincoln had attended one special 
session of the Legislature in July, 1837. The ses- 
sion was called to take some action with regard to 
the financial condition of the State. The Bank of 
the United States and the New York and Philadel- 
phia Banks had suspended specie payments. This 
action had precipitated general ruin among business 
men and interests over the entire country. The 
called session of the Legislature was intended to 
save the Illinois banks from impending dissolution. 
Lincoln retained his position on the Committee on 
Finance, and had lost none of his enthusiasm over 
the glorious prospects of internal improvements. 
The Legislature, instead of abridging, only extended 
the already colossal proportions of the great sys- 
tem. In this they paid no heed to the governor, 
whose head seems to have been significantly clear 
on the folly of the enterprise. 

In 1838 Mr. Lincoln was again elected to the \ 
Legislature. At this session, as the nominee of the 
Whig party, he received thirty-eight votes for 
Speaker. \Vm. L. D. Ewing, his successful com- 
petitor, the Democratic candidate, received forty- 
three votes, and was elected. Besides retaining his 
place on the Finance Committee, Lincoln was 
assigned to the Committee on Counties. The 
enthusiasm and zeal of the friends of internal im- 
provements began to flag now in view of the fact 
that the bonds issued were beginning to find their 
true level in point of value. Lincoln, together w4th 
others of kindred views, tried to bolster the "sys- 
tem" up; but soon the discouraging fact became 



194 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

apparent that no more money could be obtained, 
and the Legislature began to descant on what part 
of the debt was lawful and what unlawful. Repu- 
diation seemed not far off. Mr. Lincoln despaired 
now of ever becoming the ''DeWitt Clinton of Illi- 
nois." We find him admitting "his share of the 
responsibility in the present crisis," and finally con- 
cluding that he was "no financier" after all. No 
sooner had the Legislature adjourned than he 
decided — if he had not already so determined — to 
run for the same place again. He probably wanted 
it for a vindication. He was pursued now more 
fiercely than ever, and he was better able to endure 
the vilification of a political campaign than v/hen 
he first offered himself to the voters in New Salem. 

Among the Democratic orators who stumped the 
county at this time was one Taylor — commonly 
known as Col. Dick Taylor. He was a showy, bom- 
bastic man, with a weakness for fine clothes and 
other personal adornments. Frequently he was 
pitted against Lincoln, and indulged in many bitter 
flings at the lordly ways and aristocratic pretensions 
of the Whigs. He had a way of appealing to "his 
horny-handed neighbors," and resorted to many 
other artful tricks of a demagogue. When he was 
one day expatiating in his accustomed style, Lin- 
coln, in a spirit of mischief and, as he expressed it, 
"to take the wind out of his sails," slipped up to 
the speaker's side, and catching his vest by the 
lower edge gave it a sharp pull. The latter in- 
stantly opened and revealed to his astonished hear- 
ers a ruffled shirt-front glittering with watch-chain, 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 195 

seals, and other golden jewels. The effect was start- 
ling. The speaker stood confused and dumb- 
founded, while the audience roared with laugh- 
ter. When it came Lincoln's turn to answer he 
covered the gallant colonel over in this style: 
^'While Colonel Taylor was making these charges 
against the Whigs over the country, riding in 
fine carriages, wearing ruffled shirts, kid-gloves, 
massive gold watch-chains with large gold-seals, and 
flourishing a heavy gold-headed cane, I was a poor 
boy, hired on a flat-boat at eight dollars a month, 
and had only one pair of breeches ';o my back, and 
they were buckskin. Now if you know the nature 
of buckskin when wet and dried by the sun, it will 
shrink ; and my breeches kept shrinking until they 
left several inches of my legs bare between the tops 
of my socks and the lower part of my breeches ; and 
whilst I was growing taller they were becoming 
shorter, and so much tighter that they left a blue 
streak around my legs that can be seen to thib day. 
If you call this aristocracy I plead guilty to the 
charge."* 

It was during this same canvass that Lincoln by 
his manly interference protected his friend E. D. 
Baker from the anger of an infuriated crowd. 
Baker was a brilliant and effective speaker, and 
quite as full too of courage as invective. He was 
addressing a crowd in the court room, which was 
immediately underneath Stuart and Lincoln's office. 
Just above the platform on which the speaker stood 



* From MS. of Ninian W. Edwards. 



196 ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ LINCOLN. 

was a trap door in the floor, which opened into Lin- 
coln's office. Lincoln at the time, as was often his 
habit, was lying on the floor looking down through 
the door at the speaker. I was in the body of the 
crowd. Baker was hot-headed and implusive, but 
brave as a Hon. Growing warm in his arraignment 
of the Democratic party, he charged that "wher- 
ever there was a land office there was a Democratic- 
newspaper to defend its corruptions." This- 
angered the brother of the editor of our town paper,. 
who was present, and who cried out, "Pull him' 
down," at the same time advancing from the crowd 
as if to perform the task himself. Baker, his face 
pale with excitement, squared himself for resist- 
ance. A shuffling of feet, a forward movement 
of the crowd, and great confusion followed. 

Just then a long pair of legs were seen dangling 
from the aperture above, and instantly the figure of 
Lincoln dropped on the platform. Motioning with 
his hands for silence and not succeeding, he seized 
a stone water-pitcher standing near by, threatening 
to break it over the head of the first man who laid 
hands on Baker. "Hold on, gentlemen," he 
shouted, "this is the land of free speech. Mr. Baker 
has a right to speak and ought to be heard. I am 
here to protect him, and no man shall take him 
from this stand if I can prevent it." His interfer- 
ence had the desired efifect. Quiet was soon re- 
stored, and the valiant Baker was allowed to pro- 
ceed. I was in the back part of the crowd that 
night, and an enthusiastic Baker man myself. I 
knew he was a brave man, and even if Lincoln had 



THE LIFE OF LII^^COLN. 197 

not interposed, I felt sure he wouldn't have been 
pulled from the platform without a bitter struggle. 
This canvass— 1840— was Mr. Lincoln's last cam- 
paign for the Legislature. Feeling that he had had 
enough honor out of the office he probably aspired 
for a place of more distinction. Jesse B. Thomas, 
one of the men who had represented the Dem- 
ocratic side in the great debate in the Presbyterian 
Church, in a speech at the court-house during this 
campaign, indulged in some fun at the expense of 
the "Long Nine," reflecting somewhat more on 
Lincoln than the rest. The latter was not present, 
but being apprised by his friends of what had been 
said, hastened to the meeting, and soon after 
Thomas closed, stepped upon the platform and re- 
sponded. The substance of his speech on this oc- 
casion was not so memorable as the manner of its 
delivery. He felt the sting of Thomas's allusions, 
and for the first time, on the stump or in pub- 
lic, resorted to mimicry for effect. In this, as will 
be' seen later along, he was without a rival. He 
imitated Thomas in gesture and voice, at times cari- 
caturing his walk and the very motion of his body. 
Thomas, like everybody else, had some peculiarities 
of expression and gesture, and these Lincoln suc- 
ceeded in rendering more prominent than ever. 
The crowd yelled and cheered as he continued. 
Encouraged by these demonstrations, the ludicrous 
features of the speaker's performance gave way to 
intense and scathing ridicule. Thomas, who was 
obliged to sit near by and endure the pam of 
this unique ordeal, was ordinarily sensitive; but the 



198 THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

exhibition goaded him to desperation. He was 
so thoroughly wrought up with suppressed emo- 
tion that he actually gave way to tears. I was not a 
witness of this scene, but the next day it was the 
talk of the town, and for years afterwards it was 
called the "skinning" of Thomas. Speed was 
there, so were A. Y. Ellis, Ninian W. Edwards, and 
David Davis, who was just then coming into promi- 
nence. The whole thing was so unlike Lincoln, it 
was not soon forgotten either by his friends or ene- 
mies. I heard him afterwards say that the recollec- 
tion of his conduct that evening filled him with the 
deepest chagrin. He felt that he had gone too far, 
and to rid his good-nature of a load, hunted up 
Thomas and made ample apology. The incident 
and its sequel proved that Lincoln could not only 
be vindictive but manly as well. 

He was selected as an Elector on the Harrison 
ticket for President in 1840, and as such stumped 
over a good portion of the State. In debate he fre- 
quently met Douglas, who had already become the 
standard-bearer and exponent of Democratic prin- 
ciples. These joint meetings were spirited affairs 
sometimes ; but at no time did he find the Little 
Giant averse to a conflict. *'He was very sensi- 
tive," relates one of his colleagues on the stump, 
"where he thought he had failed to meet the expec- 
tations of his friends. I remember a case. He was 
pitted by the Whigs in 1840 to debate with Mr. 
Douglas, the Democratic champion. Lincoln did 
not come up to the requirements of the occasion. 
He was conscious of his failure, and I never saw 



THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. I99 

any man so much distressed. He begged to be per- 
mitted to try it again, and was reluctantly indulged; 
and in the next effort he transcended our highest 
expectations.* I never heard and never expect to 
hear such a triumphant vindication as he then gave 
of Whig measures or policy. He never after, to my 
knowledge, fell below himself." 

The campaign ended in his election to the Legis- 
lature. He was again the caucus nominee of the 
Whigs for Speaker, receiving thirty-six votes ; but 
his former antagonist, William L. D. Ewing, was 
elected by a majority of ten votes over him. The 
proceedings of, and laws enacted by, this Legisla- 
ture are so much a matter of history and so gener- 
ally known that it seems a needless task on my part 
to enter into details. It is proper to note, however, 
in passing, that Mr. Lincoln was neither prompt nor 
constant in his attendance during the session. He 
had been to a certain extent "upset" by another 
love affair, the particulars of which must be assigned 
to a future chapter. 

* Joseph Gillespie, MS. letter, June 5, '66. 



708 

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